No. 85.] 39 



we not only see the number much extended, but the quality decidedly 

 improved. Where formerly we had only the red potatoe, followed 

 by the English white, we have now the flesh-colored, the pink-eyes^ 

 mercer, carter, blue-noses, and many others, which for productive 

 powers and their intrinsic excellence, have driven the old kind out of 

 the market. 



Soj too, of our cattle. The natives, which were considered well 

 enough in their day, now look so diminutive and deformed when 

 placed beside some of the finest specimens of our Durhams, that it re- 

 minds one of dwarfs compared with men of full stature, and in perfect 

 maturity. By this remark, however, I wish not to be understood as 

 derogating from the intrinsic value of the native breed. In their day 

 they have been vastly useful. But to say that they cannot be, and 

 have not been improved by cross-breeding with other varieties, would 

 be to shut our eyes against the most apparent objects. 



So, too, of our farm implements. Look at the plow as a specimen 

 of the whole. First, we had the cast iron plow, as an improvement 

 upon the old one, and we thought we had arrived at perfection in the 

 construction of that instrument. But we found upon using it, that 

 the ease with which it could be drawn through the soil, and the excel- 

 lence of its work, must depend upon giving it that shape which the 

 laws of mathematics alone could illustrate. What that is we have not 

 yet exactly ascertained j but it is palpable that a process is now going 

 on which must end in giving it the lightest possible draft with the 

 most excellent workmanship. The improvements on this most use- 

 ful instrument to the farmer, are so great and decided, that if this soci- 

 ety has done aught to effect it, it repays a thousand-fold all the money 

 we have spent, and the time we have occupied. Who does not at 

 once see that its offer of premiums for the exhibition of plows at its 

 fair, and the extended competition which it has thus brought out, has 

 been the mighty lever that has moved the ingenuity of our coun- 

 trymen, and been the great cause of such decided and valuable im- 

 provement ? 



But, gentlemen, if the plow now in ordinary use is so much better 

 than the old one, there is yet a different kind that our advances in the 

 art of farming must call into action ; and that is the sub-soil plow. 

 This is a differently constructed implement, and is entirely a modern 

 invention. It will, however, soon come into general use, for it is now 

 well ascertained that for many crops the ordinary plow does not stir 



