Oration delivered before the Agricultural Society. iq 



As therefore there can be little expe6lation of the cheapening of 

 foreign fugar, but rather when we confider tlic infurreftions 

 and diforders in fome of the principal iflands, we fhould ap- 

 prehend the price may ftill go on to rife, there is a well-ground- 

 ed conjecture that our domellic fugar manufafture may be 

 highly beneficial to the State ; efpecially fihce it cannot only 

 be granulated in the moft beautiful brown form, but can be re- 

 fined and whitened into loaves of the firft quality. How far it 

 might be poffible or proper to carry into effeQ; the projeft of 

 pknting orchards of maple-trees, may be well worth the Soci- 

 ety's attention. 



The locuft-tree (Robinia Pfeudacacia) is one of the moft 

 valuable trees now cultivated. They grow beft in warm fandy 

 land, and become fit for timber in about twenty-five or thirty 

 years. They do not grow bulky enough for fawing into boards, 

 or hewing into beams for large buildings; but their greateft ufe 

 is for fhip-trunnels, fence-pofts, mill-cogs and fire-wood. A 

 well-grown tree is worth to the proprietor as it ftands, four 

 dollars; this when cut, fawed and fplit, can be made into one 

 thoufand trunnels, which may be fold for feven dollars and a 

 half in a fliip-carpenter's yard. Or if mill-cogs be formed of 

 it, they endure long friction before they wear out. Or if worked 

 into pofts to be fet into the ground for garden-fences and other 

 handfome inclofures, they are fuperior in point of durability to 

 almoft any known wood ; for fome which have been examined 

 after twenty years cxpofure to the weather, without paint. 



