THOMAS E. PAYSON'S ADDRESS. 213 



and a notable pedigree, what advantage has this imported stock 

 over them? Do they make better oxen? Universal opinion 

 has long ago settled this point against them. Are they better 

 cows 1 It is generally conceded that the Durham short-horns 

 are not. But no matter whether you have Durhams, Devons 

 or Ayrshires : so long as they are not well fed and cared for, 

 you will have no better cattle than that ill-favored native stock 

 which, in many places, like the lean kine of Pharaoh, seem to 

 be forsaken of God, and abused by man. Particularly is it the 

 case among those men who, for distinction's sake, may be called 

 salt-hay farmers, — and not inappropriately so termed — for if 

 there is any vegetable product upon which they set their hearts 

 more than another, it is the natural growth of unreclaimed salt- 

 marsh. 



Those of us who come within this class, make no improve- 

 ment, and can make none. Our farms, except perhaps a few 

 acres about our dwellings, diminish in value. We plant but 

 little, for, although the ocean is upon one side of us, and rich 

 peat-bogs on the other, both ready to furnish an inexhaustible 

 supply, we have little manure. We deny our cattle the benefit 

 of scanty litter, for there is nothing in the shape of fodder, that 

 cattle fed on salt-hay will not greedily devour. Our meadows, 

 capable of being easily reclaimed and made as fertile almost as 

 the prairies of the West, remain as they were a hundred years 

 ago. Every year the unchecked clumps of bushes and briars 

 are making greater inroads upon our open pasture lands. Stone 

 walls, carefully built by our ancestors, which time has shat- 

 tered, are hastily and slovenly bolstered up, to answer the de- 

 mands of the present day, while the worthless shrubs which 

 hedge them in, are preserved as a sort of heir-loom, for the bene- 

 fit of posterity. The time best suited for reclaiming our fresh 

 meadows, for collecting manures, and for the general improve- 

 ment of our lands, is neglected. Still we are not idle, but in- 

 doors and out, at this season, labor is unprofitably increased. 

 The dawn of day finds us three, five or ten miles from home, 

 engaged in our favorite business. And why do we turn night 

 into day ? Not from choice, but necessity ; for be it known, 

 that a blade of Damascus will not cut this nutritive salt-grass, 



