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Description and Holding Information
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Board of Agriculture. Annual report, <2nd (1857)>-
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**1857 Second annual report of the Secretary of the Maine Board of Agriculture. 1857. Augusta : Stevens & Sayward, printers to the State, 1958.
237 p. Secretary S.L. Goodale was Secretary for all of this run of reports and the title remained the same. The Board met in early January each year,
with around fourteen members listed. The reports were almost a textbook or long magazine about Maine farming, complete with illustrations. Pages 5-6
were the enabling act for the Board. The Secretary wished for more current information about Maine and its farmers and bemoaned the brain drain to the
western lands. He spent a lot of time in the Aroostook area, where serious farming was beginning to take hold after the vast forests were removed.
He discussed climate, soils, potential marketable crops, and transport of products. The Board meeting contained assigned topic reports that often
took up half the document. Fully half this report was about manure in one form or another and that remained a theme throughout the reports. Any
imaginable topic was discussed during the years. Toward the end of this one was a section of suggestions--offer prizes for the best whatever. Encourage
experiments. Have a state experimental farm. What is the best school level to begin teaching scientific farming? Make breeding animals available in each
county. There was usually an appendix of the financials of agricultural associations by county with assets and liabilities, premiums awarded, list
of agricultural exhibitions, and the officers of the various societies, followed by two pages of index.
**1858 Third ... 285 p. At the 1858 annual
meeting of the Board, each county reported on its activities. They asked the legislature to require county assessors to collect agricultural data.
Historically, agriculture followed lumbering. There were long essays on animal husbandry for work, meat and dairy animals which segued into
cheese-making, another on wheat and its fungi and destructive insects, and yet another on underdrainage. The usual statistics and index were present.
**1859
Fourth ... 277 p. The Board asked the Legislature for money for bookcases and specimen cases. What was the best education for a farmer? The State
needed a geological survey, but it was so expensive that the Legislature balked. There was a long essay on agriculture in general and the taxonomy of
crops, grasses especially. One article even put in a word for lightening the load on women! There was a long eulogy for a famous veterinarian. An
appendix of statistical returns from the societies and an index closed out the report.
**1860 Fifth ... 250 p. The assigned report on animal
husbandry and stock breeding was especially lengthy. The most valuable products in Maine were animals and butter. There was a section of weather charts and
the dates of the opening and closing of the Kennebec River from 1785-1860. There was another chart showing which animal feed produced the most
valuable manure.
**1861 Sixth ... There was concern that the many fairs were diluting the experience. Maine's flora and fauna, including insects was
reported from p. 113-146. A long desired geological survey was from p. 146-456, including economic resources and another whole report on the wild lands
of the North.
**1862 Seventh ... The assigned reports were really long. There was a proposal to use a certain amount of the sale of public lands
to fund an agricultural college. This was the first year that statistics had been collected by each county's assessor, so p. 156-202 were tables
arranged by county. The last three pages were about the war and its projected effect on agriculture.
**1863 Eighth ... There was special attention to
agricultural education, in the common schools and beyond, with an essay about the agricultural college to be jump-started by the Morrill Act. There
were very long articles about cheese-making, apple and pear orchards, and thirty-six pages of statistics.
**1864 Ninth ... Suggested using
newspapers to publicize the existence of a fatal disease in Massachusetts cattle. In the many Board reports, one said, "Machinery is the best friend of
the laborer," but there still was very little about agricultural equipment. The state was warned that if it wanted northern European immigrants, it
would have to go to Europe to get them, because New York pulled most of them to the far Midwest before they could even hear about Maine. There were
long articles about aquaculture, e.g., oysters and salmon, sugar beets, and chicory as a coffee substitute. There was more discussion about how to
implement the Morrill Act and the Act itself was an appendix.
**1865 Tenth ... How can the physical and moral condition of our rural population be
elevated? In addition to the usual education and right living responses, people were encouraged to grow flowers. There were twelve topics of discussion
on a broad set of subjects. There had been three offers of sites for the Agricultural College; one man argued forcefully to accept all three so as to
have a variety of farming conditions. The Board set up a curriculum for the new school. Another man suggested the school could make all the money
it needed with one good invention. There was a long article about forest lands and climate, and another that was a survey of Kennebec County. On p.
227, Maine's act accepting the Morrill Act money was printed. An Act to establish the State College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts. There was to be
a sixteen man Board of Trustees, which would select the site, buy the land, raise money for buildings, and administer the endowment. In-state
tuition was free. It would be a work/study school on the farms, with instruction in military tactics included. The Trustees sent a somewhat patronizing
address to the public, but cited the school as a good way to rise up from the difficulties of the war years. (Digitized from a microfilm copy of title
originally held by the Library of Congress).
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Title:
Annual report of the Secretary of the Maine Board of Agriculture.
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OCLC Number:
679323798
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Available Volumes
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