XVI 



it will revive the drooping plants; how much of its quickening 

 influence will penetrate the leaves, and how much will be im- 

 bibed by the roots ; nor what property in the rain water, nor 

 what combination of properties, operates to produce these eflects ; 

 but when we see the decayed and burnt-up herbage soon 

 quickened into life, and assuming its natural and brightest ver- 

 dure, it would be useless to deny that the rain may somehow 

 have had its share in this extraordinary and beautiful change. 

 There is no doubt that the thirst for agricultural knowledge, 

 and the spirit of agricultural improvement, have never been so 

 active in our community, as at this very time. 



It would be most unjust to charge me with the vanity of pre- 

 suming that all this, or even much of this, has been effected by 

 my labors. I would not be thought to place my humble ser- 

 vices in competition with the influences of the agricultural 

 press, or of the agricultural societies throughout the country, 

 or of many distinguished men ; men among the living, whose 

 eminent merits I cordially acknowledge ; and men among 

 the dead, the remembrance of whose wide and active useful- 

 ness, I cherish with deep and unaflected reverence. I will as- 

 sume nothing for having devoted my leisure hours, from my 

 professional duties, for nearly forty years, to the study and the 

 direct practice of this art ; and for having been more than twen- 

 ty years a liberal contributor to the agricultural press ; but, 

 having for the last four years exclusively devoted myself to the 

 agricultural improvement of the State, and having had direct 

 personal intercourse with the farmers, in their own towns and 

 homes and fields and ^rards, is it presumptuous to think that I 

 may have had some humble share in the glorious agricul- 

 tural revival and improvement, that is going on throughout 

 the State and country? Allow me the satisfaction of thinking 



