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Prof. Norton also wrote an appendix to Stephens's 

 Book of the Farm, together with notes, such as to adapt 

 it to this country'. In the Cultivator for January, 1850, 

 Professor Norton commenced a series of letters, which 

 were continued without interruption till his sickness. 

 Those communications were of such a practical nature, 

 and so well adapted to the wants of farmers, that they 

 constituted one of the chief attractions of the Cultivator. 

 His views of scientific farming were not of that ultra, 

 radical sort that empyrics love so well to dwell upon, but 

 rather the more rational and common sense ideas, which 

 a knowledge of the real condition of our farmers and 

 their interests, combined with sound discipline of mind, 

 would naturally form. If his style lacked ornament, it 

 was because the frame work he had to build was too 

 vast a structure to admit of decoration ; if he rarely 

 called imagination to his aid, it was because he was too 

 intent upon the stern realities of things ; if he seldom 

 manifested any great enthusiasm, it was because he was 

 conscious of having only entered on a work whose tri- 

 umphs still lay in the unexplored future. Thoughtfully, 

 carefully, steadily, he was laying the foundation on 

 which, in after years, he might rear as proud a monu- 

 ment as science ever wrote her name upon. Agriculture 

 in this country had much to hope for in his efforts : for 

 he bent the undivided energies of his mind to its 



