224 SAGADAHOC COUNTY SOCIETY. 



chosen pursuit. This I pi-esume can be done by observation and 

 practice ; by reading the best works and papers on agriculture ; 

 by meeting in farmer's clubs where questions relating to agricul- 

 ture can be freely discussed, and the benefit of each others knowl- 

 edge and experience obtained ; and by adopting all real improve- 

 ments, wherever made, which can be applied to our soil and 

 climate. After all these duties have been well performed there 

 will be much time left for general culture. This time it would be 

 an abuse of God's gift to man, of the absolute wants of our nature, 

 of our best means of happiness, and an unpardonable neglect of 

 our duty as citizens and intelligent beings, to trifle away in useless 

 or pernicious pursuits. 



Labor-saving machinery is now extensively applied to agricul- 

 tural labor, and is doing much to enable the farmer to do his work 

 easier, better, and more of it in the same space of time, than under 

 the old methods, and with the old tools of years gone by. Much 

 of the genius and inventive power of the nation have for many 

 years been devoted to improving the form and working of hand 

 tools, and to inventing machines worked by hand, horse or steam 

 power to perform more rapidly and cheaply the various branches 

 of agricultural labor. A great variety of labor saving machines 

 ■has been the result. Plows, planters, rakes, mowers, reapers, 

 shellers, threshers, and hundreds of other inventions, applied to a 

 great many diffei-ent purposes are continually asking public favor, 

 until recently the steam plow has appeared at the great National 

 and other agricultural fairs, tearing up the ground at the rate of 

 three and a half acres per hour. In this field of invention the 

 future will be more prolific, and more sure of results than the past, 

 discovering and perfecting until machinery shall be made a substi- 

 tute for human muscle in nearly all cases where much hard labor 

 is required. Let no one be content to plod on in the old fashioned 

 way of half a century ago, but wherever we find an improvement 

 adapted to our wants, one that will lighten our labor and do our 

 work as well, or better and more of it, adopt it at once as so much 

 added to your capital or the laboring force of your farms. 



Great improvements have been made in all branches of agricul- 

 ture, horticulture and pomology, during the present century, more 

 particularly during the last few years, and those leading branches 

 of human industry are now deservedly receiving a much larger 

 share of public attention than ever before. Our great National 

 Agricultural Fair, and the State and county Fairs, held during the 



