SELECTIONS FROM ADDRESSES 



AGRICULTURAL SOCIETIES 



Improvements in Agriculture. 



[Extracts from an Address hy Thomas E. Payson, Esq., at the last Fair of 

 the Essex Agricultural Society.] 



On the annual return of this day here and elsewhere, the great 

 Improvements in modern Agriculture have heen frequently made 

 an interesting topic of discourse. Thirty years have, indeed, 

 wrought wonderful changes in farming as in every thing else. It 

 is also true, in nothing else has change been effected with so 

 much difficulty. Ignorance and obstinacy have always sneered 

 at improvement. Nor have innovations in agriculture had these 

 alone to contend with; but blind error, which "like the adder 

 stoppeth her ears, and will not listen to the voice of the charmer, 

 charm he never so wisely," has always stood in their way. It 

 has been said that " error, when she retraces her footsteps, has 

 farther to go before she can arrive at truth than ignorance;" but 

 the way which she takes to get out of the heads of some farmers, 

 is the crookedest road, that it ever entered into the imagination 

 of man to conceive. Why, if the best iron plough of this day 

 had been presented to a farmer thirty years ago, he would as 

 soon have told the assessors that he was not taxed high enough, 

 as to have used it. But, though old superstition is in its grave, 

 and many an ancient prejudice lies buried beside it, the race is 

 not quite extinct. 



