DEVELOPMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



53 



her constitutions, the precision of her methods, the inexorable power of 

 her elements, the evidences of design in her arrano;ements, reveal the hand 

 and mind of a mighty Maker. In all these surroundings the Suffolk Coun- 

 ty farmer lives within a field as vast, as varied, as full of all that animates 

 observation, impels to study, excites to wonder or elevates to devotion as 

 his brother farmer in other locations, here the fields of green grass or wav- 

 ing grain are varied with the growth of the forest. Here the parching 

 drouths of summer's long day are relieved by the munificent dews of the 

 evening. Here the oppressive heat of winds from north and west is over- 

 come by the breeze of ocean. The glimmer of stream and creek, of harbor 

 and bay and Sound, add to the charm of rural landscape — and over all the 

 sound of ocean's wave. 



Since 1683, when under Governor Thomas Dongan, Suffolk County 

 as a county was organized; six generations of its farmers have passed away. 

 The simple funeral rites of those times strangely contrast with the pomp, 

 display and pageantry of the present. 



" The Power incens'd the pageant will desert." On the bier on the 

 shoulders of the living the dead were reverently carried to their final rest. 

 The stars of heaven shine upon their graves as they shone then; the blue 

 vault that o'er arches us, hung over them; the anthem of ocean that sung 

 their funeral dirge, age after age, rolls on, and will sound in our expiring 

 breath and over our crumbling dust. 



Celebrating this day that great event that two hundred years gone by 

 organized the then living generation in one compact body as a county; pay- 

 ing our tribute to them and their descendants; honoring their virtues and 

 their patriotism; blessed with the results of their toils, their fortitude and 

 their courage, as if standing beside their opened graves, we bear our un- 

 worthy offering to their memory and their solid worth. They built this 

 time-honored county and made it what it is; sire and son, after each other, 

 transmitted to coming posterity the fruits of their industry, the immunities 

 they gained, the free institutions they formed possessing this fair inheritance 

 from them, let our thanks be given from age to age, constant as the lights 

 or the voices that Nature gives. In this let us not fail, as these never fail. 



" The harp, at Nature's advent strung. 



Has never ceased to play; 



The song the stars of mourning sung 



Has never died away; 



And prayer is made, and praise is given 



By all things near and far; 



The ocean looketh up to heaven 



And mirrors every star. 



Its waves are kneeling on the strand 



As kneels the human knee; 



Their white locks bowing to the sand, 



The Priesthood of -the sea. 



The winds with hymns of praise are loud, 



Or low with sobs of pain; 



The thunder organ of the cloud. 



The dropping tears of rain. 



The blue sky is the temple's arch; 



Its transept earth and air; 



