52 DEVELOPMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



name burns the undying fire of patriotism. Monuments may perish; age 

 may obscure; yet after monuments have vanished, after ages have passed 

 the name and memory of General Nathaniel Woodhull will remain in the 

 minds of his countrymen linked forever with the remembrance of that great 

 contest in which he fell. 



For the farmers of Suffolk County I might and I must say more. But 

 for them there had been no Suffolk County as it now is. The bed rock of 

 Agriculture underlies all other occupations; is the mother of all arts, of all 

 manufactures, of all navigation, subsisting on the products of the prolific 

 earth, all these may flourish. Thereby manufactures may expand ; the 

 mechanic arts make progress, and commerce be carried, for exchange of 

 products over every ocean. But for Agriculture there had been no plant-' 

 ing of colonies on these shores; no commerce over her waters; no United 

 States on this Continent. The farmer made all this possible. Mainly by 

 his strong arm; the feeble colonies grew in numbers and power, into States, 

 and fought successfully the great Revolution that made them free and in- 

 dependent of all other nations. All honor to the farmer! all praise to ag- 

 riculture! Not least of all to the agriculture and the farmer of Suffolk 

 County. The mariners who from this county traversed every sea; the 

 mechanics who wrought in all the arts of industry; the professions which 

 shone as lights in theology, in medicine, in jurisprudence; the Legislators 

 who sat in the halls of the State or Nation, were born and reared on the 

 farms of Suffolk County.' Therefrom came her Senators in both. Thence- 

 forth marched that woundrous tide of emigration from colonial days to 

 other counties of this great State, north and west, and to east and west 

 Jerseys, as then known; and through after ages to the expanding West and 

 the remotest Pacific coast. That mighty tide, enlarging, enriching, aug- 

 menting the population and power of other counties and States and terri- 

 tories, diminished the growth of this county while it enlarged theirs. 



The proximity of Suffolk County to the large cities of the continent 

 attracted visitors from the earliest days. The invalid and wayworn found 

 its ocean breeze bracing in summer and mild in winter. The sportsman 

 found game running in its forests, swimming in its abounding waters, and 

 fiying in its air. The lover of quiet and repose found it here. The good 

 cheer and substantial comfort of its old taverns and farm houses were wide- 

 ly and well known. From the tip ends of Orient and IMontauk Points to 

 its western limits, in early, and increasing in later days, Suffolk County 

 was the resort of hundreds now grown to thronging thousands. Dominy's 

 and Sammis' hotels were almost as well known as the Astor House and 

 Delmonico's; yet Fire Islaad and Bay Shore were but two, out of scores of 

 other resorts where, on both shores of the county, and extending eastward, 

 then and now the interior and the cities pour their residents on the sea 

 coast of this county. The products of its soil were largely consumed by 

 boarders in farm houses, and hence the returns of those products foot up 

 relatively less for this than other counties in the census reports. 



If elsewhere the farmer communes with nature and comes nearer her 

 gates than other industrial classes; if elsewhere the contest to overcome 

 the obstacles nature interposes to impede the fruition of his desire, is wag- 

 ing; if elsewhere the study of her laws and mysteries awakes close obser- 

 vation, minute search and absorbing thought; if elsewhere conformity to 

 her laws be the requirement of success in the battle of wrestling from the 

 soil its products; if elsewhere the vastness of her range, the uniformity of 



