The material consists of a volume of meeting minutes for the Wentworth County Agricultural Society, dated 1857 to 1888. The minutes record the general revenues including membership fees, funding grants, gate admission fees, booth, stand and stall rentals, and unclaimed prize money, as well as the general expenditures including prize money awarded, salaries of officers, judges’ expense accounts, labour and wages, building and land rentals, decorating expenses, stationary and postage, and badges and ribbons. The minutes also record the reading and acceptance of annual reports, the elections of officers and judges, the money received from membership societies, the rules and regulations of fairs and exhibitions, the logistics of operating the fairs and exhibitions, the prizes to be awarded for each category of entry, the names of the winners and the prize amounts awarded, the formation of committees, as well as the importance of educating farmers on the scientific principal of good agriculture. There are also some newspaper clippings that are glued to some of the pages. The clippings are articles reporting on the Society visits to farms to inspect the livestock and crop yields to determine if the farmer meets the criteria for participation in the fair or exhibition, reports from the judges’ examinations, as well as announcements of prizes awarded. There is also a looseleaf page of meeting minutes from January 21, 1885.
