4 MR. newhall's address. 



perlty and liappluess, and without it no other professions can long 

 continue to liourish. 



The object of our society is the promotion of this great interest 

 of the community, and it must afford pleasure to all to witness the 

 growing regard with which it is viewed : to see the most intelligent 

 men of other professions, and the greatest men of our country, and 

 of the world, lending their influence in aid thereof. In a retrospec- 

 tive view, we look with gratitude to those excellent men whose wis- 

 dom and forecast laid the foundation of an institution which has done 

 and is still doing so much for the welfare of the farming interest. 

 It must be a source of gratulation to all, to witness the influence 

 which this Society has exerted on the agriculture and horticulture 

 of the county. Many tracts of wet and at certain seasons, of sub- 

 merged grounds which were of little or no value, have been thor- 

 oughly drained and made capable of cultivation, at an expense Avhich 

 two or three crops have fully remunerated ; and the land now is 

 among the most valuable in the county for agricultural purposes. 

 More attention has been given to the preparation and use of com- 

 post manures. Better animals have been reared, and more atten- 

 tion given to their keeping. Greater care has been bestowed upon 

 the cultivation of fruit, — old trees have been renovated and convert- 

 ed to valuable varieties. Young trees of every description which 

 flourish in our climate, have been planted. Nurseries of fruit trees 

 have been reared and cultivated with much care, and every desira- 

 ble variety of these, as well as ornamental trees, can be obtained by 

 those Avanting such for orchards or ornament, which are far better 

 adapted to this region than such as are brought from a warmer 

 clime. In many places the streets have been adorned by the plant- 

 ing of shade trees, and a taste for improvement is everywhere appa- 

 "rent. 



But a few years since under the old system of agriculture, farm- 

 ers became discouraged, believing that the land had become ex- 

 hausted, that its cultivation would no longer afford a living, much 

 less a profit, and some saw no alternative but a removal to the fer- 

 tile prairies of the West, a land indeed productive, but prolific to emi- 

 grants from the East, of diseases which far more than counterbal- 

 ance the rich harvest which may there be gathered. The complaint 

 is frequently reiterated that farming affords but little profit ; that 

 not much more than a living can be obtained. This in many cases 



