E. H. DERBY'S ADDRESS. 221 



beneath a fertile soil, and adapted it to wheat and corn, or 

 spread her beech-nut forests over the hills, to furnish mast for the 

 swine, and created pastures congenial to the sheep, she has placed 

 us near the ocean, the great highway of nations ; she has shaped 

 out ports and harbors for commerce, rivers to impel spindles, 

 has clad our rocky hills with forests suitable for timber or fuel ; 

 and if she has planted boulders in our fields, a market exists for 

 them in the wells, cellars and walls of our growing towns and 

 cities; she has given us land, which enlightened industry will 

 adapt to our position, and endued us, I trust, with sufficient en- 

 ergy to make it available. 



Within the last twenty years, agriculture has made great ad- 

 vances in this county : meadows have been reclaimed ; drains 

 have been opened ; beautiful orchards have been planted ; taste- 

 ful cottages, improved houses and barns, have been constructed ; 

 the races of animals have be. a n improved; the sources of fer- 

 tility have been guarded ; land more highly cultivated ; and the 

 society I have the honor to address has, no doubt, contributed 

 to the progress of agriculture. 



But why should not further and more rapid progress be made, 

 and why should not Middlesex present as bright an aspect as 

 the most productive counties of England ? Why should we 

 not become the pattern county in agriculture, as well as manu- 

 factures ? We have markets for our produce nearly, if not quite, 

 equal to those of England. The price of hay, straw, milk and 

 vegetables here, is quite as high as the average prices of Eng- 

 land. In Indian corn, with its masses of fodder, which will 

 not ripen in England, we have decided advantages. In the 

 apple, congenial to our soil, but which does not attain perfec- 

 tion in England, we are also before her. In addition to all this, 

 every frugal and industrious man may here own his farm in 

 fee, is free from the burthen of feudal tenures, from oppressive 

 taxes and poor-rates, and may worship God, educate his children, 

 and vote according to his conscience, — a privilege not always ac- 

 corded to the English tenant. 



But while the farmer of Middlesex enjoys these advantages 

 and incentives to exertion, does not much still remain for him 

 to accomplish 1 Do we not occasionally see half-tilled fields, 



