NOTHING NEW. 91 



NOTHING NEW. 



From an Address before the Norfolk Agricultural Society. 



BY SAMUEL B. NOYES. 



About forty years ago, when the city of Boston was com- 

 paratively a small village, on Court Street, near the head of 

 Hanover Street, in a room in an old-fashioned building, to which 

 you descended by a wooden step, Robert New — " Bob " New — 

 kept his barber-shop. He was a pretty old man, and his cus- 

 tomers, who, in those days made the barber-shop a sort of ex- 

 change, where they learned the gossip of the town, used to call 

 him " Old New." By-and-by it transpired that the barber had 

 a son born in his house, and the curiosity of his customers was 

 great to know what he would christen him. So for some days 

 they asked him, " What do you call the boy ? " " Nothing," 

 was the reply ; and so the child went by the name, " Nothing 

 New." And if you should ask me what can be said here to- 

 day in this presence, which is new, I should answer — nothing. 

 And my theme may well be called " Nothing New." 



It seems to me that you can consider no subject to-day of 

 more importance than to know how the interest of the people 

 of this country in this society, formed under such glorious au- 

 spices, can be heightened, and increased, and extended. Every 

 farmer in the county of Norfolk should be as enthusiastic in 

 its continuance and support to-day as they were who established 

 it. There may be town societies, or smaller district societies, 

 but these should be subsidiary to, and branches of, this society, 

 as county societies are parts of State societies, as State societies 

 are tributary to the New England Society, or to a National 

 Society. It is a local interest we need. 



We need not fear that the human race will ever cease to 

 have a delight in the cultivation of land, — the raising of grain 

 and fruits and planting trees. Men always did delight in the 

 pleasures of agriculture. It has been the chosen pursuit of 



