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XIII law, which has become so universally unpopular. Of the subjects at this time particularly deserving your consideration, the agricultural interests of the State are considered by many as among the most important. They are truly so. For the cultivation of the soil constitutes the employment of a great majority of the people of the State and is the foundation upon which we must depend for our present as well as future increase and prosperity. At the last session of the Legislature a bill was reported, providing for the encouragement of Agricultural Societies. This bill having been published for general information, there is reason to believe that the policy and importance of its provisions have been well considered, and understood by the people. Associations of this kind have been formed in other countries and in many of our sister States and under the patronage and fostering care of the government, have been found productive of the most beneficial results. By thus occasionally meeting together for the purpose of exhibiting specimens of industry and new improvements, and communicating and receiving information in relation to the various branches of agriculture, a spirit of honourable emulation is excited, the employment of the husbandman is raised in public estimation, and new energy and enterprise will be introduced among the yeomanry of our State. In my last annual communication to the Legislature, reference was made to the importance of continuing to afford aid and encouragement to our literary institutions. Owing to peculiar circumstances which then existed, no appropriations, excepting in one instance, were made for that purpose. I respectfully submit the subject again to the consideration of the Legislature from a full conviction that the permancy of our