430 SELECTIONS FROM ADDRESSES. 



goods, in person. Here for example, within the twenty-two 

 townships, there are but two or three of them, through the ter- 

 ritory of which an iron road which leads to one or more large 

 market towns is not laid, and a steam carriage does not run. 

 And there are very few farms which are not within easy reach 

 of a station on some one of these lines. This advantage is 

 not yet fully understood for two reasons, the first, because the 

 business of carrying freight as well as passengers is as yet in 

 its infancy on American railroads, and secondly, because it takes 

 some time to change habits of cultivation which have been 

 formed under a state of things very different from the present ; 

 but it must make itself felt upon the agriculture of the county 

 more and more. 



The truth is that, if we look around us, we see every thing 

 changed excepting perhaps the old way of farming, and the 

 conclusion to which I am inclined to come is, that, if farmers 

 are expecting to continue such, that way must change also and 

 accommodate itself more than it has done to the new state of 

 things. Large allotments carried on Avith no capital and little 

 labor will not do. They are likely to lead to the poor house 

 sooner than to independence. Small allotments may be carried 

 on with little capital, but they will not do well without the 

 more undivided application of labor than it has been commonly 

 the practice heretofore to give. If the land you work be nat- 

 urally poor, the only remedy is to put labor upon it. You may 

 tell me, this will do no good. Then pray what do you say to 

 the success of the comparatively unintelligent people of Bel- 

 gium, who with inferior means have converted the almost hope- 

 less sands of their country into the garden of Europe ? The 

 secret of their skill is their devotion to one pursuit, and not in 

 any advantages possessed either by themselves or by the land. 

 It is industry overcoming obstacles which makes them pros- 

 perous. As a general thing, the experience of the world proves 

 this to be true, that the best farming is not found where nature 

 has given the best lands. The compensating system of Divine 

 Providence has given the preference to hard-handed labor, by 

 offering to the mind certain palpable results as the incentive 

 to exertion. He who shall succeed in converting nature's 



