154 State Board of Aoriculture, &c. 



position to follow in the ruts ; all of which are causes of 

 many losses and cruel disappointments. 



AVedded to one idea, reasoning tliat because a certain 

 line has ])een remunerative, that it will always be so, is not 

 good policy, is not good judgment. It is that which has 

 borne so long disastrously upon the Spanish nation, and 

 brought them from tlieir proud eminence in the days of the 

 Spanish Armada, to the ignoble position of the present, 

 subjects of the commiseration and pity, and offers of medi- 

 ation by the nations of the earth, because unable to suppress 

 a minor rebellion in her province of the Isle of Cuba ; to 

 say nothing of her Cai-list insurrection. 



To use a crotched tree for a plow, l^ecause the fathers 

 did, is certainly a very poor conmientary uj)on the intelli- 

 gence and progressive improvement of any people ; and for 

 Yermonters to breed Morgans, after the circumstances that 

 gave rise to them and rendered them in demand have passed 

 away, even if they possessed the material to do it, which 

 they do not, except in a limited sense, argues a condition 

 almost or quite as repreliensible. 



With tlie advent of steam power, old modes of travel 

 passed away. The mail coach and the family carriage for 

 journeys were as things that had been, l)ut now out of com- 

 mission, and condemned to act as tenders, as it were, to the 

 puffing, hurrying railroad train, that, 



" Rumbling over bridges, 



Tumbling thro' the vale," 



caused the people to exclaim, 



" Bless me ! this is pleasant, 

 Riding on a rail." 



