0. F. ADAMS'S ADDRESS. 437 



We shall do well to learn something from the experience of 

 older countries, from that of the continent as well as that of 

 England. And, if I understood it aright, that experience dic- 

 tates to us, first of all, more ploughing, less fallow, and the 

 cultivation of a greater variety of crops. 



Of course I mean by this, an increased attention to what go 

 by the name of root crops, such as carrots and beets, turnips 

 and parsnips as food for cattle. It is now little more than forty 

 years since this subject first came into notice, in this county, 

 and it has been on the whole advancing ever since, but it has 

 not yet gained the favor among our farmers which its impor- 

 tance to the advancement of our modes of cultivation seems to 

 merit. I know the objections commonly made to it, that it re- 

 quires labor at a time when it is the most inconvenient and 

 expensive to furnish it, and that after all, the feed for milch 

 cows is not so beneficial as that obtained from articles imported 

 by the grain dealer. I know milk men who pay out cash in 

 considerable sums for the materials which they give their cows, 

 rather than to make an effort to raise them from their own 

 ground. But the question for them to consider is, whether they 

 do not lose, in the stationary condition of their farms, quite 

 as much as they gain from the saving of their labor. If they 

 are enabled to command the manure, and they also possess the 

 land, is it not the dictate of a wise economy to provide some 

 methodical system of labor to the production of a rotation of 

 crops which shall keep the different parts of the farm on the 

 advance together ? 



And here let me make one remark which has occurred to me 

 from the observation and comparison of the modes of farming 

 practised in Europe and America, and that is, how very far we 

 fall short of them in the systematic arrangement practised upon 

 considerable farms. I am aware that rigid economy in the 

 distribution of the means of mere subsistence is not an Ameri- 

 can's characteristic, either in the house or in the barn. His 

 children and his cattle alike are apt to waste as much as they 

 want. Whilst we have cause, as a nation, to thank Divine 

 Providence for the blessing of so much plenty, that a habit like 

 this cannot exhaust it, it may be well to remember that all 



