12 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



On the increased prosperity of our society we soon became 

 agitated with the question of a permanent location, which 

 eventually led to a division, and the central society was organ- 

 ized. Of the wisdom of this measure I have nothing to say ; 

 but I am entirely satisfied it has promoted an increased interest 

 in the county, and that either of the existing societies is doing 

 more for agriculture than would have been done if the division 

 had not occurred. 



I have always found it difficult to make our capitalists 

 realize the importance of agriculture as the foundation of our 

 prosperity. They cannot or will not perceive the rapid growth 

 of our country under the combined influence of agriculture 

 and manufactures. Divorce these two great leading interests 

 of our country, and we should soon pass back to an age of 

 barbarism. 



No community ought to feel more the importance of increas- 

 ing the products of the soil, than the community where we are ; 

 it is the source of our life ; from it we receive our daily bread. 

 And yet, what encouragement is held out to that man, who by 

 constant toil is now producing four tons of hay where formerly 

 scarcely one was received ? Or what credit would that man 

 receive, who from apparently worthless and cast-off land, covered 

 with rocks, snags and tussocks, should present to your view a 

 beautiful meadow of twenty acres, destined ere long to produce 

 fifty tons of hay ? And does it not speak well for the progress 

 of agricultural science, that in our county one man can testify 

 that within the period of twenty years, more than forty acres of 

 swampy, rocky land, hardly worth the name of an owner, has 

 been brought into successful cultivation ? 



And perhaps nowhere has the power of example been seen 

 and realized, how speedily it exerts its influence on some neigh- 

 bors, and how readily, almost unconsciously, they are found re- 

 moving those obstacles to cultivation which have remained for 

 generations, than with us. 



It cannot be denied that in our county, as well as in other 

 parts of our Commonwealth, there has been within a short 

 period a material advance in agricultural science, and this is 

 exhibiting itself, not only in the drainage and clearing of land, 

 but also in the beautifying of the grounds with fruits and 

 flowers. 



