10 MR. payson's address. 



lation — but it becomes an instructive fact. In Flanders,* and when 

 -we speak of Flemish farmers, we speak of men worthy of imitation, 

 this species of manure is relied on more than any other, and in 

 China, where every town has its sworn broker expressly for the 

 purposa of examining night soil it forms a fourth part of all the mar 

 nure used. 



Yet notwithstanding its known value, a great majority of us suffer 

 it to run to waste, and in the largest public establishment! in the 

 County of Essex, until recently if not now, this great element of fer- 

 tility, has been suffered to escape into the sea. 



An eloquent Eaglish writer says, if the kitchen-garden husbandry 

 of Flanders could be substituted in our plains and the terraced cul- 

 ture of Tuscany in our hills, for the present system of agriculture, 

 the produce of the British Islands would at once be doubled and af- 

 ford ample subsistence for twice the number of its present inhabi- 

 tants. If old England be capable of so great improvement, where 

 in the scale of progress does New England stand ? 



Another matter worth a moments attention is the Feeding of 

 Stock. A Southern gentleman, when about to commence farming, 

 was led to inquire of an experienced neighbor, what was the best 

 mode of making corn. ^'■Keep your work-horses fat,^^ was the reply. 

 Experience proved to him who made the inquiry, that this hint com- 

 prehended every thing connected with good cultivation, although 

 neither of them knew at the time, that Cato had said two thousand 

 years ago, that the secret of farming consists in feeding well. 



Large sums of money have been spent by individuals and societies, 

 to improve our breeds of cattle. The best foreign varieties have 

 been made available to the man of the most limited means. Far be 

 it from me to say a word to discourage this laudable enterprise, which 

 has already effected much good and is destined to do much more, but 

 when the merits of foreign varieties have been blazoned abroad, and 

 the inferiority of our native breed carefully exaggerated, I have some- 

 times thought that the sin of its owner was laid at the door of the 

 brute beast. Feed our cattle as they should be fed, and except sym- 

 metry of form, and a notable pedigree, what advantage Itas this import- 

 ed stock over them ? Do they make better oxen ? Universal opin- 



*The recent manure of a single cow, is valued in Flanders at ten dollars per year, 

 t House of Correction, &c., at Ipswich. 



