MR. newell's address. 5 



pise or undervalue either. I consider them the foundation on which 

 farming must stand, when applied with industry and economy. 

 What is philosophy, but knowledge so explained that it can be prac- 

 tically applied ? What is theoretical chemistry, but known princi- 

 ples, worked out and put on paper, so that the practical farmer 

 can work out those principles in the soil ? It is settled that 

 chemistry can be applied practically, and with a good degree of 

 certainty ; and I am confident that the farmer must take advantage 

 of the researches made in it, or an intimation will be true that 

 I lately saw in an agricultural journal, — that the man who has 

 more land than he can cultivate with his own individual labor, will 

 grow poor ; though I should be loath to be compelled to admit that 

 this position is true as a general thing, for a course of years. It 

 may be that the extra demand for labor on public works, and for 

 manufacturing purposes, has for some time past crowded up the price 

 of labor, above what the grower of grain crops could well afford to 

 pay. But the profits which have drawn labor into those channels, 

 will be limited in their duration, if all interests are equally cared for. 

 And before the farmer rises up in opposition to any investment which 

 he may conceive to be more profitable than his own, let him first in- 

 quire, have the same energy, the same skill, and the same untiring 

 perseverance, been exerted in my pursuit, as have been in perfecting 

 machinery, in preventing loss in labor, and employing the occupants 

 upon that portion of labor to which they were best adapted ? 



I believe every man who has been through our factories and work- 

 shops, will be constrained to acknowledge, if the same system of 

 allotment of labor could be as judiciously assigned upon the farm as 

 is there, nearly double the amount of labor would be accomplished. 

 I admit that there is more difficulty in setting off exclusive portions 

 of AYork to individuals on the farm, than in manufacturing establish- 

 ments, especially if our farms are to be so cut up that every man is 

 to do his own labor. But for this small-farm theory I have no sym- 

 pathy. I am aware that in making the assertion, I go counter to 

 the general sentiment of the day. Still, allow me to say, in order 

 that farming may be brought to its highest perfection, I believe it 

 must be under a policy of liberal expenditures, by men wholly de- 

 voted to the profession ; and of a natural enterprise, that would not 

 rest satisfied with over-seeing the amount of labor they could ac- 

 complish with their own hands j — and I therefore think that the advo- 



