VENERATE THE PLOUGH

A History of the Philadelphia Society for Promoting Agriculture 1785-1985
by
Simon Baatz

F O R E W O R D

During the two hundred years since our beginning, several brief histories of the Society have been produced. The first account of the Society's early years was written by John Hare Powel in 1829; he was followed by a succession of authors who focussed on the early national period. The present history is the first by a professional historian, yet it is by no means a dull theoretical tract stuffed with sociological jargon. Quite the opposite, in fact. The author, while basing his argument on a mass of detailed evidence, has produced an entertaining work which, once started, I found increasingly difficult to put down. The Society is proud to mark its bicentennial with this fascinating account of our past.

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