510 Address before the R. I. Horticidtural Society. 



great to be acquired only by years of toil, study, experience 

 and observation : — 



Playing farmer is a very interesting but somewhat expensive luxury. 

 It is not only a harmless but praiseworthy recreation to those who need not 

 stop to count the cost. If it is a most effectual, it is also a refreshing and 

 exemplnry relief for a plethora of the pocket, — a bleeding useful to the 

 patient, and of essential service to those to whom prudence dictates the 

 propriety of obtaining experience vicariously. Unlike most methods of 

 spending money for mere amusement, there is virtue in excess, and merit ia 

 due in direct ratio to the extent of outlay. The practitioner has little 

 danger of injuring the constitui ion of his subject by repeated expfriment. 

 Mother earth is a tough old lady, and stands dosing and cutting up with 

 admirable fortitude. Indeed, the more she gets, the better she looks, being 

 decidedly in favor of the allopathic mode of treatment, and despising all 

 infinitesimal application. 



A gentleman farmer is usually understood, in this country, to mean one 

 who possesses some capital in money, and very little, if any, in agricultural 

 knowledge. He pays for his information as he gets it, and, if endowed 

 with a moderate share of prudence, abstains from being lavish of his opin- 

 ions before his practical hired laborers. When he assumes the direction of 

 things, his orders have very much the appearance of a declaration of hos- 

 tility against first principles, being often irreconcilable with each other, and 

 somewhat at variance with the laws of nature. Like a newly made general 

 at a militia muster, he is apt to get the rank and file into a hard knot without 

 knowing by what earthly process he shall disentangle them, putting them 

 as they were. He can sympathise with the sailor's embarrassment in 

 ploughing, who managed tolerably well before the wind, but in going about 

 missed stays, and involved the whole team in inextricable confusion. He 

 fills his barn and corn-crib at an expense which may well entitle the con- 

 tents of the latter to the graphic appellation of "golden grain." He talks 

 learnedly of crops, and buys his vegetables ; has the most wonderful cows, 

 and often wants milk ; is well supplied with newly invented churns, and is 

 furnished with butter from a passing market wagon, although, occasionally, 

 the product of his dairy enables him to exult over what seems to be a lump 

 of wliite tallow. He is strong on poultry, mixing the ornamental with the 

 useful, gives them crystal palaces with many curious devices to induce hens 

 to become perpetual laying machines, and is lucky if he can eat a few of 

 his own eggs at a dollar a piece, depending for his family supply on his poor 

 neighbors, who can at any time sell him an apron-full hurriedly collected 

 from old sheds and rickety haymows. He turns for relief to his fruit as a 

 perennial source of consolation, there being at least one element of unadul- 

 terated enjoyment, demanding care from no hand but that of nature. Her 

 operatives are at work for him. The borer riddles his apple trees ; the cur- 

 culio anticipates him in tasting his plums ; his peach orchard gives him a 

 crop or two and then surrenders to the leaf-curl or the yellows and becomes 

 poor fire-wood ; and after waiting for years for the rich harvest from his 



