SELECTIONS FROM ADDRESSES 



TO 



AGEICULTURAL SOCIETES. 



Agricultural Improve.ments. 



[Extracts from an Address, by Hon. Asa T. Newhall, at the last Fair of the 



Essex Jigriadtural Society.] \ 



The agriculture of the county of Essex, and of our State, 

 for some two or' three generations after our fathers secured 

 titles to their farms, had erected their buildings and cleared 

 a field for grain and vegetables, set out orchards, and cut away 

 the beaver dams, that flowed many of our meadow lands, on 

 which, they afterwards raised fodder for their cattle, remained 

 about the same. 



It is true, they improved their homesteads, by erecting better 

 buildings and better fences, but the sons would plough the 

 same, and generally, only the same fields that had been 

 ploughed by their fathers ; and not being acquainted with the 

 proper mode of cultivating the soil, so as to have continued its 

 productiveness, very little improvement was made in farming. 

 It was thought, that only a few patches of the land in our 

 county could ever be made into productive and profitable 

 farms. When we take a look among the farms of the county, 

 and find so large a proportion of them composed of gravel 

 knolls, sand banks, sunken swamps, and wet meadows, (the 

 process of reclamation at that time being unknown,) we have 

 no good reason to condemn their judgment. 



It is only about half a century since the first eff"orts were 

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