ADDRESS 



BY THE HON. WILLIAM JESSUP, OF MONTROSE, PENN., BEFORE THE 

 NEW-YORK STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY, AT WATERTOWN, 



OCTOBER 3d, 1856. 



Mr. President, and Ladies and Gentlemen, 



Of the JYeto-York State Agricultural Society: 



In compliance with the invitation of your committee, I appear 

 before you to pronounce your annual address. 



Looking at the distinguished character and preeminent abilities 

 of those who in several successive years have preceded me in the 

 discharge of this duty, and the high character of their addresses, 

 the broad scope and full discussion they have given to most topics 

 seemingly proper for such occasions, it might well become so 

 humble an individual to decline this honor. But my apology 

 must be found in my love and veneration for the great cause of 

 agriculture, and a desire to add my poor mite to its onw^ard pro- 

 gress and steady advancement. 



In this desire I bring a few suggestions w^hich may serve to fill 

 that space in your interesting exercises usually allotted to this 

 object. 



For a little more than a century our national progress has been 

 so rapid, as to leave us and those who preceded us, no stopping 

 place, no apparent quiet and calm, in which there could be a 

 gathering up of the rich profusions which have surrounded us; 

 and a consolidation, so to speak, of the elements whicli cunsti- 

 tute our greatness. They all lie strewn along our pathway — • 

 scattered everywhere — and in the disarranged and disordered 

 state in which we i»ass by them in our rapid ]>r(»iTress, most truly 

 and fully bear their testinionv to our natit»nal erreatness. 



We are yet in a giant infancy; our institutions are shaped and 

 molded by influences which have never seen a parallel in the 

 history of Earth. Far removed by tlie wide intervention of the 

 Atlantic from the corrupt and corrupting inlluences of the Old 



