6 MR. NEWKLL S ADDRESS. 



cates for small farms, so far as their influence extends, (and I con- 

 sider it somewhat general,) have a tendency to deter our young men 

 of enterprise from engaging in the cultivation of the land, thereby 

 depriving the farming community of the aid of the best energy and 

 the most promising enterprise; a portion of which, I feel we absolute- 

 ly need and are justly entitled to. 



When the time comes that the current of public opinion shall 

 change on this subject, and men of wealth shall enter upon farming 

 with the same energy they have engaged in manufactures, they will 

 devise means whereby it will become a living business and a large 

 business ; and instead of being pointed to a small farmer with forty 

 acres, showing he can maintain himself, you will be pointed to a large 

 farmer with his one thousand acres, and showing conclusively that 

 he can so arrange his labor that he can support himself and give a 

 fair dividend upon his Avhole investment. 



Upon new lands, little need be done to obtain a crop, but to burn 

 to ashes the forests that have been accumulating for ages, and to 

 sow the seed. But where the remedies have been neglected, a long 

 series of cropping has exhausted its early fertility, and it will not 

 recover but by the application of manures to restore what the crops 

 or evaporation have draw^n away. How can this be most effectually 

 accomplished ? How so well as by a knowledge of the materials 

 which compose the surface soil^ and also by a knowledge of the 

 substances in which the soil is deficient, in order that the proper 

 remedies may be applied ? Far be it from me to ask the farmer to 

 commit to memory a dictionary of hard names ; but I do consider 

 it necessary to his improving his land„ and obtaining with any 

 good degree of certainty abundant crops, that he should be familiar 

 with certain fixed principles that alone can secure them. If a learn- 

 ed and scientific man could be engaged to visit every section of the 

 county or commonwealth, go on every description of land and ana- 

 lyze the soil, and explain the effects of manure on the several varie- 

 ties, and also the effect of one kind of soil when mixed with another ; 

 and by relating experiments, show what is the most perfect com- 

 position, it Avould fix some standard for improvement, and the 

 crops and the different manures would be put upon the right spot. 

 Should a competent individual be appointed to this task, the farmers 

 themselves, as I believe, would reap a benefit that would enable them 

 to pay him a salary, equal to any in the Commonwealth. 



