No. 4. Address delivered before the Jig. Society of JVeiv castle Co., Del. 123 



have become by the facilities of communi- 

 cation, one commercial community. Pro- 

 visions bought in the morning market of 

 Philatlelphia, may be dressed for dinner in 

 her neighbonr cities. Very soon intercourse 

 will pass with lightning speed. Your beau- 

 tiful city of Wilmington, will share full 

 largely in the prosperity of this sisterhood. 

 Vonr markets have been opened and en- 

 larged tor the products of your industry, and 

 the access to the lime of the upper country, 

 has awakened an almost enviable activity 

 and thrill among your citizens. Your posi 

 tion allows you to share in the benefits of a 

 stupendous combination of improvements, 

 unencumbered with the burdens which good 

 things pushed to extremes, have levied on 

 some of your neighbours. The thrifty man 

 ever deserves, as he enjoys, the reward of 

 his labours. 



"It is our felicity to cultivate a soil of 

 varied products. To the bread crops of the 

 old world we have superadded the corn 

 plant, fully perfected by our warm nights 

 and hot suns. It must result from the skill 

 and sagacity of one of your members, that 

 we have not realized nor learned half its 

 value. 



"Next after bread and flesh, salt and su- 

 gar, form ihe most necessary ingredients in 

 our aliments. Chemistry has disclosed a 

 multitude of facts in regard to the composi- 

 tion of sugar, and to the substances from 

 which it may be extracted ; it remained 

 until recently, to be made known, that 

 maize was among those which gave the 

 richest return. Sugar is no longer necessa- 

 rily an intertropical product, or one of a low 

 latitude. 



" It is a good practical maxim, to raise 

 whatever we can, and to buy only what more 

 our means and comfort require. 



"There are few fiirms where less than 

 three to six hundred pounds of sugar are 

 consumed annually. Mr. Webb's estimate, 

 based on experiment, gives assurance that 

 this amount may be approached, from the 

 product of one acre of ground. Between 

 high prices for produce, and reduction of 

 expenses by growing our own comforts, 

 there will be found little difference." 



"The farmer has to encounter unfavour- 

 able seasons, liability to disease in his crops 

 and the depredations of insects. At best he 

 is not to look for a sudden acquisition of 

 wealth or continued large profits; he is, 

 however, exempt from the anxieties of great 

 risk, while health and peace accompany 

 his engagements; a boon great gains cannot 

 bestow. Large profit is contingent on the 

 hazards of trade, and even there, instances 

 " success bear a small proportion to disq,s- 



trous failure. It seems to have been too 

 much the habit, to stimulate agricultural 

 nnprovoment by a spirit of gain unconge- 

 nial with the pursuit. A cow or sheep has 

 been made to sell for thousands, a bud or a 

 pofatoe for a hundred cents. A great crop 

 is sometimes held forth as what all may ob- 

 tain certainly by a certam process. In fifty 

 years I have seen no such harvest as that of 

 ISO:?; it resulted from no better or more dili- 

 gent culture, than in the forty-nine other 

 years; some of which were almost entire 

 failures. It is perhaps no unfair estimate to 

 look for something equal to a failure of the 

 wheat crop, once in five to ten years. Corn 

 may be put at fifteen, it gives to the farmer 

 the most certain return of all the plants we 

 cultivate. The whole summer cultivation 

 is more certain of good product than that 

 which has to encounter the winter's expo- 

 sure. In a well prepared, strong soil, with 

 rare exceptions, they will succeed. The 

 extended summer culture in latter times 

 has very much increased the products of the 

 soil. 



" I have not witnessed a mere premium 

 crop, disregarding every thing but the re- 

 turn, to have been of much value in the 

 progress of farming. It will rarely square 

 with a good practical husbandry. A great 

 product to be practical, must enter into a 

 course of culture that will leave the ground 

 undeteriorated if not improved. In a sytem 

 of farming suited to our grounds, it is not so 

 much great products in special cases, as a 

 judicious course of culture and application 

 of manures. 



" The cultivated grasses have become of 

 the highest value, both as to their product 

 and in a course of good culture. They are 

 equally important in good farming connected 

 with ploughed crops, and it is required in 

 their growth for success, that there should 

 be a thorough working of the soil during 

 two seasons, to destroy weeds and make the 

 ground friable. A full course of crops, from 

 the breaking up of the lay until another 

 course is commenced is necessary, to give 

 the proper elements, to form a just estimate 

 of the success and merit of the farmer. A 

 single crop as has been noted, may occur 

 more by accident, than as due to skill and 

 management. It may also be very much 

 magnified in the amount, by sacrificing to 

 obtain it, the great consideration of keeping 

 up the fertility of the soil. Land should 

 never be impoverished in a good course of 

 culture. In this as in much of human affairs, 

 the stationary point is hardly to be main- 

 tained, it must either improve or become 

 worse. 



' In the close of the last century and the 



