n 



surrounded, more profitably have devoted a less proportion of our soil to th« 

 growing of wheat, and by diversifying our productions, insure an increase 

 both of the certainty and amount of the reward for our labor ? In our soil 

 Uiere is a great variety. Has not Providence designed that its productions 

 should be equally varied ? Undoubtedly. And this fact is attested both by 

 the diversity of our wants, and the adaptation of our different soils to differ- 

 ent products. Why then persist, year after year, in an effort to raise wheat 

 from a soil more peculiarly adapted to some other product, such as corn, or 

 rye, or barley, or hemp, or flax, or grass ? and perhaps fail in the effort three 

 times in every five ? Will it be replied that it is because there is no market 

 for any thing but wheat ? If so, the best remedy I can suggest is, still again 

 to multiply the diversity of your products, and turn them into horses, cattle, 

 sheep and hogs, wool, yarn, cordage, thread, cloth, beef, pork, lard, butter, 

 cheese, — any of the thousand different articles which the wants of maa 

 require, and to which the markets of the world are open. 



Again — let me ask, is it not time for us, now at any rate, to give good heed 

 to these things, when by the improvements which are going on all around us 

 and in our midst, to increase our facilities for reaching those markets, w« 

 may select whatever market we choose, east, west, north or south. "**' 



And even if our soil is not adapted to a great variety of products, the ex- 

 perience of others, of which we may avail ourselves, and scientific research, 

 have placed it in our power to know exactly what kind of manure and cul- 

 ture are requisite to give it this adaptation. Our country abounds in excel- 

 lent publications of every variety, full of experience, and knowledge, and 

 wisdom on these subjects. And I regard it as among our first and most im- 

 portant duties, to take measures for the diffusion of this knowledge, by the 

 circulation of these publications every where. I trust that before the next 

 anniversary of the organization of this society, every member of it will be a 

 subscriber to some agricultural paper. We must, if we sincerely regard our 

 own true interests — we must avail ourselves of the aid of this mighty auxili- 

 ary, the press, which is now throughout the civilized world so happily enlist* 

 ed in the cause of agriculture. 



We must not, because this year and last year we have been blessed with 

 abundant harvest, we must not therefore conclude that it is our own skill that 

 has made it so, and that the cause of agriculture is prospering and progress- 

 ing well enough in our own hands, without this aid from other sources. No, 

 possibly for the next three years, the same crops, under the same degree and 

 kind of culture, may fail. And it is the part of wisdom in us, by heeding 

 her suggestions, to prepare for and guard ourselves against such an emergency 

 as well as may be, by multiplying the kinds of our productions ; adapting 

 our crops to our soils, and by proper manuring and culture, even adapting 

 our soil to such crops as would be most profitable to cultivate. 



To acquire and enable us practically to avail ourselves of all this know-^ 

 ledge, is indeed the primary object of our organization. 



In this first attempt at a public address to our society in its present incipi- 

 ent state of existence, I think, so far as anything like a detail of our first 



