WEST OXFORD SOCIEir. 139 



comparisons. You live at the base of the White Mountains. The 

 most of you can hardly conceive of a mountain much larger than 

 Mount Washington. It is large enough to pierce its head among 

 the clouds, but shave it off at its base and place another of its size 

 on "its head, and then put Mount Jefferson above them both, and it 

 would scarcely reach the top of the highest peak in the Rocky 

 Mountains. Or, if that will not do, pile four Mount Washingtons 

 above the other, and you will have a South American mountain. 

 Or, to finish the climax, take all the different peaks of the White 

 Mountains and pile them above each other, and you would not ex- 

 ceed the highest mountain in Asia. 



If such be the differences in the natural world, it would be well 

 to look abroad a little and ascertain what others are doing more than 

 ourselves. I have long thought that farmers did not take sufficient 

 pains to visit each other's farms, and especially of those who have 

 become eminently successful in their calling. 



Let a consideration of these things serve as hints to you to expand 

 your views and give greater scope to your range of thought in your 

 calling. It is a pointed remark of some one, that no one can ever 

 make much progress by copying himself as a model; and to no man 

 will it apply more closely than the farmer. 



But I wish to say a word on a subject nearer to your homes. As 

 I travel over your county and call on its enterprising farmers, I find 

 large numbers who with commendable pride point out to me a few 

 acres of land in the highest state of cultivation. If it is in corn, it 

 is rank and heavily eared. They tell me how they prepared the 

 ground. What pains was taken in plowing, harrowing and manur- 

 ing, and in planting too. No one thing in this county interests me 

 more than this. I have occasionally (I wish I could say often) 

 been surprised at the vast amount of produce that can be obtained 

 from one acre by deep plowing, or, what would be better, if it could 

 be done as cheap, by deep spading. A farmer told me this present 

 year that he secured the last year at the rate of forty-two tons of 

 parsnips to the acre. I say, gentlemen, you are going on in the 

 right direction. In almost all parts of this county, the soil is strong 

 and deep, and you need not fear to plow it a good depth, provided 

 you can secure a proportionate amount of manure. I believe there 

 is not a farmer present who does not feel stimulated by the impulses 



