No. 4. 



Agricultural Address. 



109 



will be kept back no part of the price, 

 that no false baits will be thrown out to lure 

 him to his hurt. Already, through the local 

 associations over the land, has an amount of 

 valuable practical information been accumu- 

 lated, which can only be appreciated by 

 lookinLr back to the period of their origin. 

 True, there have been no startling changes 

 produced. The general course of agricul- 

 ture remains the same. Could it have been 

 otherwise, the result would have been, for a 

 time at least, disastrous; for all experience 

 would have been unsettled, and confidence 

 destroyed. But as the friendly visitor often 

 sees improvement in the patient which the 

 watchers at the bedside fail to notice, so the 

 gradual improvement in our own counties, 

 and througliout the land, has been too uni- 

 form to attract marked attention. If we 

 look back, however, but a few years, we 

 shall be enabled to institute a comparison 

 highly pleasing, I am aware that nuich, 

 very much, remains to be done; and I know 

 that the improvements made here and there, 

 are rather to be considered as specimens of 

 what may be done, than as evidence of what 

 has been done. Yet, among other things, 

 we may notice a decided improvement in 

 the style and completeness of the farm-build- 

 ings in many quarters. The barn is no longer 

 a road-side structure, unenclosed, and sur- 

 rounded by wagons, carts and rollers, litter 

 and hogs ; stables are not now muck-heaps, 

 nor the barn-yard an impassable swamp. 

 But order and management prevail to a far 

 greater extent than formerly. There is a 

 place for every thing, and every thing is 

 beginning to find its place. Good shelter 

 for stock and implements has been found 

 true economy. Cleanliness and order fatten 

 both the barn-yard and the cattle. So the 

 venerable hedge-rows that used to adorn our 

 fences have greatly disappeared. Our wood- 

 lands are now frequently enclosed. Healthy 

 orchards, of a rich variety of superior fruits, 

 are not uncommon. The meadows are 

 drained and improved. By the greater at- 

 tention to manures and composts, and to 

 top-dressing, grass-lands are more produc- 

 tive, and more cattle per acre are fed. The 

 corn crop is not doubled, nor is the highest 

 product of wheat attained; but each is great- 

 ly increased. The implements of husbandry 

 are vastly improved. Formerly any wheel- 

 wright could make the plough, if we were 

 lucky enough to get the right mould-board. 

 Now we have ploughs of approved make for 

 every description of work. The mania of 

 speculation, which threatened to plough 

 every hill-side with rail-roads, and trench 

 every valley with canals, did indeed lead to 

 some e.xcess in the matter of improved 



Short-horns, Southdowns and Berkshires; 

 but even that was better, as many can tes- 

 tify, than certain " fancy stocks" we wot of, 

 whether Vicksburg, Navigation, or Monsters 

 of whatever paper variety. VVe are indebted 

 to England in a very diflerent sense for our 

 importations of bvlls than of bullion ; of 

 cows than of credit. "Large growth is 

 always the result of sudden expansion." 

 By the aid of this temporary excitement, 

 more has been done for the permanent im- 

 provement of our stock of every kind, than 

 coukl have been effected otherwise in a 

 great many years. The earlier we begin 

 in such matters the better. Had we waited 

 until the great West had been filled with 

 mongrel cattle from Virginia, Kentucky and 

 the South, as well as from New England 

 and New York, how immeastirable would 

 have been the work of improvement. 



Having thus briefly alluded to some of 

 the indications of improved agriculture in 

 our midst, allow me to say, that every en- 

 couragement is presented to further efforts. 

 Under our form of government every thing 

 of this kind is lefl to individual enterprise. 

 The praiseworthy efforts of the recent Com- 

 missioner of Patents were entirely volun- 

 tary on his part. It is only by associations 

 in every section that proper energy can be 

 maintained and directed. 



What has been done is but little when 

 compared with the field of improvement 

 opened up before you. The former discove- 

 ries of science have already, to a good de- 

 gree, been reduced to practice. But within 

 a few years there have been such advances 

 in chemistry, and in other branches, as to 

 render it certain that a new era in agricul- 

 ture is about to commence. The great Ger- 

 man pioneer. Dr. Liebig, has hewn away the 

 barriers of agricultural chemistry, and every 

 year we may expect to realize tiie benefits 

 of his research. 



In respect to these fruits of science, we 

 must await the perfection of their experi- 

 ments, and their ultimate reduction to prac- 

 tical rules. There is, however, much to be 

 learned by experience in the fields. The 

 rotation of crops is a subject worthy of far 

 greater attention than has as yet been paid 

 to it in this vicinity. What the former mode 

 may have been I do not know; but the fact 

 has often been stated, that our present sys- 

 tem of corn, oats and wheat in succession, 

 is of comparatively recent date. The rea- 

 sons inducing this course are evident enough, 

 but scarcely sufficient; at least in my opin- 

 ion. The corn crop was formerly the great 

 object. It requires the whole season. For 

 this reason, and because it was fancied that 

 the buried sod gave firmness to the tall corn, 



