w varieties as were
peculiarly suitable to the climate. For nine years they maintained their
organization and carried on their work unaided and unrecognized
officially.

To this period belongs also the first attempts at special instruction in
agriculture and the beginning of an agricultural press. Both are
intimately connected with the association, already referred to, that had
been organized in 1846 by some of the most progressive citizens.

For four years the Provincial Association carried on its work and
established itself as a part of the agricultural life of Canada West. In
1850 the government stepped in and established a board of agriculture as
the executive of the association. Its objects were set out by statute
and funds were to be provided for its maintenance. The new lines of work
allotted to it were to collect agricultural statistics, prepare crop
reports, gather information of general value and to present the same to
the legislature for publication, and to co-operate with the provincial
university in the teaching of agriculture and the carrying on of an
experimental or illustrative farm. Professor George Buckland was
appointed to the chair of agriculture in the university in January 1851
and an experimental farm on a small scale was laid out on the university
grounds. Professor Buckland acted also as secretary to the board until
1858, when he resigned and was succeeded by Hugh C. Thomson. He
continued his work for some years at the university, and was an active
participant in all agricultural matters up to the time of his death in
1885.

Provision having been made for agricultural instruction at the
university, the board in 1859 decided to establish a course in
veterinary science, and at once got into communication with Professor
Dick of the Veterinary College at Edinburgh, Scotland. In 1862 a school
was opened in Toronto under the direction of Professor Andrew Smith,
recently arrived from Edinburgh.

The _British American Cultivator_ was established in 1841 by Eastwood
and Co. and W. G. Edmundson, with the latter as editor. It gave place in
1849 to the _Canadian Agriculturist_, a monthly journal edited and owned
by George Buckland and William McDougall. This was the official organ of
the board till the year 1864, when George Brown began the publication of
the _Canada Farmer_ with the Rev. W. F. Clark as editor-in-chief and D.
W. Beadle as horticultural editor. The board at once recognized it,
accepted