536 , [Assembly 



at Dorsoris, and which, thereforej could only work half the time, 

 could not compete with mills worked by natural waterfalls in the 

 very heart of the wheat-growing country ; and consequently, the 

 mills at Dorsoris have gone to decay, and now, instead of flour 

 and wheat, Queens exports hay, and oats, and corn, and potatoes, 

 abundant poultry, and more abundant garden stuffs. The canal, 

 which was to ruin the county and depreciate its lands, has turned 

 it into a garden, and added two or three times, and perhaps more, 

 to the value of every tillable acre in it. Bathed by two seas, in- 

 dented along eithe.r coast by deep bays, and intersected in its 

 whole length by a railroad, which affords cheap and rapid con- 

 veyance to and from the great metropolis, Queens county cannot 

 be interfered with in its prosperity, as long as there are in that 

 metropolis hundreds of thousands of mouths to be daily supplied, 

 and hundreds of thousands of dollars to be expended for what 

 may be called, perhaps, articles of luxury, early ilowers,-fruits and 

 vegetables, and flowers, fruits and vegetables raised out of season, 

 and by artificial climates ; and herein indeed, as it seems to me. 

 is mainly to consist in the future the profitable employment of 

 the soil and the industry of Queens county, or at any rate, of that 

 large portion of it immediately contiguous to its railroads and its 

 bays. Horticulture, rather than agriculture — the garden rather 

 than the farm — is to be the chief object of attention and culture. 

 But then gardens will come to have the dimensions of farms, and 

 in a great degree, though not wholly, the plow will do the work 

 of the spade. 



One great staple of agriculture, or farming proper, will still be 

 extensively cultivated ; for a near, safe, and constant market gives 

 it permanent value I refer to hay — which the Queens county 

 farmer knows well how to raise, of excellent quality, and how to 

 withhold from market, until — canals and rivers being- fast locked 

 in icy fetters — he can command his price for it in New-York. It 

 is a humble sounding word this of hay, and the thing itself, as 

 being the food of unreasoning animals alone, is cheaply considered. 

 Yet, as a matter of fact, the hay crop of the United Stated is of 

 more value in dollars and cents than the cotton crop, albeit we 

 hear sometimes that cotton is emphatically the life and wealth 

 of the Republic and the preserver of the Union. It certainly is a 



