No. 112.] 547 



with which jou are so familiar are but the advancing shadows, 

 sliould we find our clief pleasure. Even the simplest improve- 

 ment, applied to the commonest of our implements, speaks to us 

 of the blight intellect which its new property may help to bring 

 forward. Eacli new grain and flower bears the impress of intel- 

 ligence on its brilliant surface, and gives glad promise of the 

 children of a generation which shall be stimulated to yet further 

 improvement, embracing a wider mental range. And for that I 

 am a farmer, and would see my children in the same honorable 

 <;aning. It is especially grateful to me to watch the rapi<i spread 

 of tolerant, world-wide, lofty sentiments among the fcirmers of 

 the land. Demagogues and sycophants have long sought to win 

 the good offices of the farmer, with crediting him 'as the bone and 

 sinew of the country. Did it never occur to them that the Na- 

 tion's mind, ifs brain, its life, is the mind, the brain, the life of 

 the farmer. Tliank Heaven, wood and iron are raj idly being 

 substituted for the incessant drain upon the bone and sinew, and 

 leaving time for mind to think, to study, to act. 



ROCKLAND. 



Pursuant to the law entitled ''An act to promote agriculture,^ 

 passed May 5th, 1841, the following report of the condition and 

 proceedings of the Rockland County agricultural Society, for ihd 

 past year, is herewith respectfully submitted. It may be pre- 



* 



mised that the general interests of the society are on the advance, 

 and that great hope is entertained by its olHcers and me^.ibers 

 that the society will continue to realize the hopes of its useful- 

 ness antici|jated by the Legislature, in the act above referred tou 



The usual preparatory meetings of the executive committe* 

 were held, to which the officers and members were invited, and a 

 very general attenthince of the olBcers was procured. Last year 

 the movements of the board were principally directed to lhege»- 

 /?ral ex^^ension of the influence cf the society Ihiuugliout the limiti 



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