ESSEX SOCIETY. 31 



full encouragement to redouble their efforts in availing them- 

 selves of all the means of information within their reach, and 

 prosecuting, with renewed energy, their honorable occupation. 



It must be obvious to all, that a great physical change has 

 been produced, through the agency of steam, as a motive pow- 

 er, within the last half century. And the more recent discov- 

 ery of railroads, for the transportation of passengers, merchan- 

 dise, produce, and live stock, which have already checkered our 

 whole country, furnishing cheap and easy transportation to the 

 cultivators of the soil, many hundred miles in the interior, 

 where the price of land, and the expense of cultivation are com- 

 paratively small, may have, to some extent, for the few years 

 past, injuriously affected the cultivators of the soil near our old 

 markets, where the price of land is high, and expense of culti- 

 vation large. But it does not require prophetic vision to per- 

 ceive that the cultivators of the soil here have passed this cri- 

 sis, and are fast recovering their equilibrium, and will soon find 

 themselves erect again, with their friends and neighbors in 

 other pursuits. The partial failure of the potato crop, for sev- 

 eral years, and the fruit crop for the two past years, has affect- 

 ed the income of the farmers, in this county, to some extent. 

 The other products of the farm have been abundant, and our 

 domestic market has been rapidly increasing here, and extend- 

 ing into the interior. While the cultivators in the more fertile 

 regions of the west, where crops are less uncertain, and ex- 

 penses small, are finding a foreign demand for much of their 

 produce, prices of the products of the farm here are recovering 

 to such an extent as to reward the laborer for his toil, and give 

 him a small dividend on his capital. Nothing seems wanting 

 to the cultivators of the soil of this county, to ensure success, 

 but knowledge, patience, perseverance, and economy, and the 

 blessing of our Heavenly Father, who has graciously been 

 pleased to vouchsafe to us the assurance that seed time and har- 

 vest shall not fail. 



Jonathan Merrill entered his farm for a premium, but not in 

 season, by the rules of the society, to be entitled to one, should 

 he have been found otherwise deserving. J. F. Ingalls, Daniel 

 Merrill, and Simeon L. Wilson, entered for an examination. All 

 were in Methuen. 



