or oats, or grass. Have not your annals recordcil 

 the fact that Farmer John A. King, in reaching to 

 lake oft' the first premium, has got up to 98 bush- 

 els to tlie acre, and yet was not the victor — and 

 have I not sent to my native old wheat-growing 

 State, Maryland, a specimen of white-bearded 

 wheat grown by Mr. Harold, weighing 65 

 pounds, and utterly exempt from every species 

 of extrinsic matter ? 



If, gentlemen, 1 might name one thing to 

 which, from my limited views, your attention 

 might be turned to advantage, it would be that 

 you should begin to look for profit to the higher 

 cultivation of a greater variety of fruits than 

 I have seen growing on the waysides — you 

 should remember, I respectfully suggest, that 

 you have yet to meet a still more formidable 

 competition than you have yet encountered, in 

 the sale of all the great staples of Agriculture, 

 which will bear transportation from the borders 

 of the great lakes in the far west — a sort of 

 transportation which will become yet cheaper 

 in proportion to the quantity offered, and which 

 injures nothing on the way by jolting or violence. 

 True, by the instrumentality of your great pub- 

 lic works (honored in passing be the memory 

 of Clinton !) the proceeds of many industrious 

 millions, must in time be brought into competi- 

 tion with yours ; and at this you might repine, 

 were it possible, witliout tlie vast trade which 

 these works insure, to sustain the millions on 

 your borders who will in the same time, be con- 

 sumers of your produce. But cut off these pub- 

 lic works, exclude that far distant competition, 

 and what then ? Your great and growing cities 

 would dwindle into insignificance — rank and 

 loathsome weeds would overgrow the paths of 

 industry, and a second Volney would come along 

 to meditate in view of their ruins, and say, as of 

 Balbec and Palmyra — 



'• And now a mournful skeleton is all that subsists 

 of This powerful Cit^' ! Naught remains of its vast 

 (lominalion, but a doubtful anil empty remembrance ! 

 to the tumultuous throng which crowded under 

 these porticoes has succeeded the solitude of death. 

 The f i!eit-e of the tomb is substituted for the bustle 

 of public jilaces. The opulence of a commercial City 

 is cliangcd into hideous poverty. The palaces of the 

 rich have become a den of wild beasts ; Hocks fold 

 on the area of the temple and uncli-an reptiles in- 

 habit the sanctuaiy of the gods ! Ah ! how has so 

 much ?loi-y been eclipsed* "How have so many la- 

 borers" been annihilated? Thus perish the works 

 of men, and thus do empires and nations disappear!" 



Where then would be your market, and what 

 the value of ypur lands ? But as circumstances 

 deny the monopoly that short-sighted selfi.shness 

 miglit like to enjoy, prudence suggests that you 

 should with circumspection prepare for the 

 changes that imperious circumstances will force 

 upon you. Do not these considerations invite 

 yon to a more extensive and more careful culti- 

 vation of the various fruits and culinary vegeta- 

 bles — beyond what may conduce to the health 

 and comfort of your own family — in order to 



supply the necessary and the luxurious demands 

 of an immensely populous and opulent City ? 



I confess to a decided partiality for these small- 

 er brancliesof industry, because they are iu their 

 nature more domestic. Excellence in the man- 

 agement of gardens, orchards, and flowers, while 

 it demands a certain degree of polite knowledge, 

 at once indicates and cherishes the better feel- 

 ings of the heart. Justly, then, may we extol 

 the liberality and good taste of some of our opu- 

 lent merchants, who, in the midst of their multi- 

 farious engagements, lend some of their time and 

 the well-earned fruits of their enterpri.se to the 

 embellishment of neighborhoods with villas and 

 ground.s, such as many around Boston, and, no ( 

 less beautiful than those, Mr. Man ices's, iu your ! 

 own vicinity — such villas as may be suppos-ed < 

 to have displayed the munificence of illustrious 

 sages of antiquity, whose virtues we fe as emi- 

 nent as their fortunes; and who, in the midst of 

 luxurious splendor, continued to steal occasions 

 to withdraw, and in every way to evince their 

 partiality for the country. Trees have always 

 seemed to me to have a sort of living or social 

 quality — a power of engaging our affections by 

 adventitious circumstances or associations, 

 which few if any other inanimate objects possess ) 

 in like degree. There is an old Poplar, on the 

 college green at old Annapolis, which has tried 

 the wings of many an unfledged poet — and 

 been borne in affectionate remembrance by 

 every succession of graduates to all parts of 

 the world, for the last sixty years. What 

 money would purchase the Spanish chesnut in 

 the classical gi'ound at Belmont, seat of the late 

 Judge Peters, near Philadelphia, from a nut 

 planted by the hand of Washington ! or the 

 ivy that, planted by the great English orator, 

 Fox, still clings to the sacred walls of Lagrange, 

 the hallowed residence of Wa.shington's friend, 

 the great and good Lafaj'ctte. He ^^•ho intro- 

 duces a new vegetable from foreign parts, or a 

 tree fit for ornament or timber, better deserves 

 to be rewarded with the honor and respect of 

 his counti-y, than many military heroes lo whom 

 monuments have been decreed by people and 

 senates infatuated and servile. 



Why not let us chronicle, for a Long-Island 

 Captain Hochestek, the credit which I am told 

 is his due, for having brought to this country the 

 Ailanthus, or the tree of Heaven, in the ship 

 Lion, from the East-Lidies. A tree which has 

 few equals in the ease with which it may be 

 propagated, or in the rapidity of its growth ; and, 

 moreover, it is now said to rival, after a certain 

 n.z.0, the weight and solidity of box-wood ; and, 

 if so, might it not he profitably cultivated in 

 plantat'ons, for practical uses. 



If there be any radical mistake in your agri- 

 cultural economy, a transient ob.server like my- 

 self, not fully initiated in all the reasons that con- 



