LINCOLN SOCIETY. US 



AN ADDllESS 



Delivered, before the Lincoln Agricultural and Horticultural Society, in Thomaston, 

 October 2, 18-56, by B. F. Buxton, M. D. 



Mr. President, and Gentlemen of the 



Lincoln Agricultural aiid Horticultural Society : 



It was with no small degree of reluctance that I accepted the 

 invitation of your Trustees to address you upon this occasion. 

 Supposing myself to have been called upon professionally, to 

 examine the nature of the disease with which agriculture in 

 the countv of Lincoln seems to have been long laboring, I 

 doubted my ability to diagnose, properly, the disease, and pre- 

 scribe a remedy; but, having engaged, I examined its anatom- 

 ical structure, and found that the great skeleton, or stony 

 foundation, was of primitive formation, and at once concluded 

 that it was well able to sustain the soft parts, composed of 

 almost every variety of soil ; while the great circulating system,, 

 the veins and arteries, in the form of small streams from the' 

 mountains, the brooks meandering through the meadows, and. 

 the rivers finding their way to the ocean — the great centre or 

 heart — was abundantly able to support and render fit for use- 

 those parts ; nor was there any want in the nervous system ;. 

 there is an abundance of power in moneyed capital to send an, 

 electric shock through the whole structure. 



From these considerations, I came to the conclusion that 

 there was really no organic disease, but merely a functional 

 deran«;ement, showing itself in diflerent forms under different 

 circumstances. The causes of this derangement are various; 

 sometimes arising from speculating mania, at others from ex- 

 tended manufacturing and trading, and occasionally, from ex- 

 cessive emigration ; but the most serious obstacle to the full, 

 and perfect development of agriculture, may be traced to. a. 

 general dislike for labor. 



No country can become truly great, virtuous, and rich, which. 



