10 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



NEW e:n"gla:n^d faemii^g. 



From an Address liefore the Middlesex North Agricultural Society. 



BY GEOKGE B. LOKING. 



The agreeable duty of opening the annual exhibition of this 

 society once more devolves upon me. Encouraged by the 

 success of last year, we have returned to Lowell, out of our 

 usual course, to receive the valuable assistance which a thriv- 

 ing manufacturing community is always read}^ to bestow upon 

 that industry which we specially represent. In many respects 

 the season which is just beginning to approach its close, 

 when the results of our labors are to be estimated, has been 

 unusually propitious. Froiii early spring until now, the fields 

 have been "in verdure clad," and the husbandman has been 

 surrounded by all the luxuriance, which Nature in her most 

 liberal mood could bestow. The long repose of drought 

 seems to be broken, and the scorched and wasted land has 

 returned with new vigor to its work of production. The 

 tiller of the soil has received his full share of prosperity, and 

 a new assurance that well-applied agriculture is as capable of 

 securing an ample reward as any one of those more attractive 

 occupations whose profits and uncertainties are equally great. 

 The magnitude of this exhibition is of itself suflicient evidence 

 of the esteem in which agriculture is held, and of the encour- 

 ao;emeut held out to those eno:aired in it. The collection of 

 live-stock of every description is larger and more valuable 

 than we have before witnessed on a similar occasion, bearing 

 witness that no discouragement has yet fidlen upon those who 

 are endeavoring to improve the flocks and herds of New Eng- 

 land. The specimens of agricultural machinery on these 

 grounds have not been surpassed at any previous show, and 

 indicate a determination on the part of our mechanics to keep 



