260 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER, 



PSU. 31, 183ii. 



AN ADDRSSS 



To the Essex Agricultural Socidy, at Danvcrs, 

 September 30, 1835, at their Annual Cattle Show. 

 i?3/ Danif.l p. King. (Pubiislied by order of 

 the Society.) 



Mr President and Gentlemen: — The seventeenth 

 anniversary uf your Society lias liroiiglit together 

 the fanners of the county, to exchange their friend- 

 iy greetings and heartfelt congratulations; it has 

 given you opportunity to renew and extend your 

 acquaintance amongst men of conuiion habits, 

 feelings and pursuits — to take by the hand many 

 practical and enterprising husbandmen iu whom 

 you have long been interested — men who have 

 instructed and encouraged you by their precepts, 

 their example and their success; it has redeemed 

 one day from the busy round of a farmer's ever 

 active life, and devoted it to social intercourse, 

 and sober, manly enjoyment. Had your Society 

 been productive of no greater benefits, it woidd 

 still have deserved all the countenance and encour- 

 agement which it lias received from the State and 

 from an enlightened community. But social en- 

 joyment and an occasional relaxation from the 

 tediousness of business arc not the only, nor the 

 principal benefits which h^vc resulted from yoin- 

 association. It has exerted a powerful influence, 

 by awakening a spirit of inquiry and emulation, by 

 introducing new varieties of vegetables and fruits, 

 an improved stock of cattle and improved methods 

 of husbandry, by exposing erroneous, but long 

 cherished opinions, by diliusing knowledge and 

 encouraging enterprise and industry. A worthy 

 clergyman, himself a practical farmer, says that 

 the expense of cultivation in the county of Ply- 

 mouth had been thought to exceed the amount 

 derived from it ; but that the Agricultural Society 

 has proved that labor and skill can make even 

 despised soils productive. " I suppose," says he, 

 "that ten bushels of rye to the acre, twenty of In- 

 dian corn, one ton of English hay, and two hun- 

 dred bushels of potatoes, were formerly considered 

 as average crops. Since premiums have been 

 offered, we have claims for from forty to fifty 

 bushels of rye, from one hunrlred and fifteen to 

 one hundred and twentytwo of Indian corn, from 

 three to four tons of Englis'i liay, and from four 

 to five hundred bushels of potatoes. Our improve- 

 ments have not been confined to single acres; in 

 several instances the products of entire farms have 

 been more than quadrupled." I will not say that 

 the Essex Agricultural Society has effected so 

 much good, or that it has effected all the good of 

 which it is capable — b\it £ wi!l say, without the 

 fear of contradictioti, that your Society has done 

 more good, much more good, than it has ever had 

 credit for. And I ask tiie observing, experienced, 

 practical farmers, who compose so large a part of 

 this audience, if, within fifteen or twenty years, 

 the produce of many farms within their knowledge 

 has not been nearly doubled .- Have not the crops 

 of hay, of corn and of oilier kinds of grain, in- 

 creased on an average from fifty to one hundred 

 percent..' Have not ploughs and other agricui 

 tural implements been much imiiroved.' Do not 

 you more fre(piently hear of cows which yield 

 from fifteen to twenty quarts of milk jier day, and 

 which make from ten to sixteen jiounds of butter 

 in a week.' Are not working o.xeu of handsomer 

 appearance, better trained and more powerful? 

 If you answer yes, as I believe you will with uni- 

 ted voices, to what causes will you attribute the 



improvement ? I ask honest, [iracticai, discrimi- 

 liating farmei's to what causes they can attribute 

 the improvement, but to the influence of Agricul- 

 tural Societies, to the imjiulse they have given to 

 enterprise, to the spirit of emulation they have 

 awakened, and to the knowledge they have been 

 the means of diffusing ? The influence of such 

 .Vssociations is not always direct and obvious ; 

 like that of the dew and the air, it is a blessing 

 too common, noiseless and unostentatious to be 

 felt or acknowledged by the inconsiderate and un- 

 reflecting. There are few men who will be long 

 content to follow a rough, hilly and circuitous 

 path while their neighbor travels a smooth, direct 

 and jileasant road which brings him with more 

 expedition and safety to his journey's end : there 

 are few farmers who will be content lo toil and 

 drudge from year to year in the same dull round 

 which their fathers followed for a bare subsistence, 

 while they see their more enterprising neighbors 

 in the full tide of successful experiment, becoming 

 richer and more jjrosperous from having adopted 

 the improved methods of husbandry. . Does any 

 farmer seriously complain that he has derived no 

 benefit from Agricultural Societies, that he has 

 not been instructed by their publications, that he 

 iias not been enlightened by the knowledge they 

 have diffused .' If that farmer has not connected 

 himself with the Society, has not read its publica- 

 tions, nor followed its recommendations, it would 

 be no less unreasonable for him to complain that 

 his corn would not vegetate before he had com- 

 mitted it to the earth and while it remained in his 

 granary — it would be no less unreasonable tlian 

 the complaint of.the hypochondriac that he is not 

 warmed by the sun, while he secludes liimsoif in 

 his chamber and bars his doors and his windows. 

 Many farmers have suffered their minds to be pre- 

 judiced by an unfounded and uni-easonal)le dis. 

 trust of Agricultural Societies, as encouraging and 

 sanctioning book-farming. It may not be unpro- 

 fitable to inquire how books on husbandry are 

 com]>i!ed. A jnactical farmer in Andovcr, for 

 instance, has raised large crops of potatoes, another 

 in Haverhill has had great success in t!ic cultiva- 

 tion of rye, another iu Newbury has raised supe- 

 rior wheat for successive years, and many other 

 farmers in various parts of the county, havQ been 

 successful in the cultivation of the several cro[)s 

 to which they have given particular attention ; 

 actuated by the scriptural injunction to " do good 

 and communicate," they write detailed accounts 

 of their several methods of cultivation and send 

 them to a common friend, a farmer well read and 

 experienced ; he carefully examines the commu- 

 nications, received from sources which Jie knows 

 are entitled to confidence, he arranges them, win- 

 nows out the grain, and garners it uji in a book. 

 And now is there anything like legerdetnain or 

 cunning in this? is there anything suspicious 

 about it ? Had you visited any one of the farmers 

 who have made a communication, and witnessed 

 with your own eyes his field luxuriant with the 

 growing crop, or burdened with the ripened har- 

 vest, and heard the detail of his management, you 

 would not have hesitated to believe his statement, 

 nor adopt his practice. The mere act of publish- 

 ing it cannot make his statement tiie less deserving 

 your confidence, nor the improvement the less 

 valuable. We will supjiose, that for the purpose 

 of making further inquiries and explanations, the 

 gentleman to whom the communications were 

 sent, invites his friends in the diftereni sections of 



the country to meet him on an a|ipointed day ; 

 they come together, and discuss what methods of 

 husbandry are best calculated to make abundant 

 harvests, and freely express their ojiinion on all 

 subjects connected with rural economy. These 

 practical farmers derive so much pleasure and sat- 

 isfaction from the interview, that they resolve to 

 have regular meetings at stated intervals, and for 

 the sake of encouraging exjieriments, and promo- 

 ting improvements and industry, they determine, 

 from funds in their possession, to ofl'er iireiniums 

 to successful competitors. Here is an Agricultu- 

 ral Society, and here is a Cattle Show. Is there 

 in all this anything of combination or treason ? 

 Is there anything which threatens the liberties of 

 the people or the safety of the Commonwealth? 

 Your Society has to contend with the coldness 

 and indifference of hs friends, rather than with 

 the malice of its enemies — it has no open and 

 declared enemies, and I am sure you have no wish 

 to conjure them up merely for the sake of giving 

 them battle. You have beat your swords into 

 ploughshares and your spears into pruning hooks 

 — you delight more to train the vine than to bend 

 the bow, to swing the scythe than to wield the 

 lance. The well cultivated field is the field of the 

 farmer's glory ; his highest ambition, to improve 

 it ; if he has doubled the produce of his farm, he 

 feels that he has achieved a nobler victory than if 

 he had conquered armies or subdued empires. 

 And we invite the yeomanry of the county to join 

 in this honorable competition — we invite practi- 

 cal farmers, the men of broad shoulders, muscular 

 arms afl'd strong hands, to connect themselves 

 with the Society, and by their experience and their 

 example, to help in the promotion of its interests 

 and the advancement of its prosperity. Your 

 united efforts can make this institution an honor 

 and a filessiiig to the whole farming community. 

 Will you not use your endeavor to strengthen and 

 sustain a Society which was formed for your ad- 

 vantage, and which subsists only for your benefit? 

 In recommending to you to try experiments and 

 to study the periodicals and books devoted to hus- 

 bandry, I do not advise you to an universal and 

 indiscriminate adoption of any man's rules or 

 opinions. I would not have a farmer go into the 

 field with a book in one hand and a hoe jn the 

 other ; such a practice would lead him to the 

 result of a certain visionary farmer who com- 

 plained " that the carles and cart avers make it 

 all, and the carles and cart avers eat it all " — the 

 labor and expense of cultivation more than balance 

 the value of the crop. But the farmer should read 

 and ponder and deliberate ; he should study and 

 reflect, and adopt such rules and methods as he 

 finds applicable to his own soil and circumstances. 

 A judicious practice, enlightened by sound theory 

 and science, will effect wonders for Agriculture, 

 the mother and nurse of the arts, as it has done 

 for all her children and dependants. Unless the- 

 ory and practice walk hand in hand, mutually 

 helping and encouraging each other, we cannot 

 hope that Agriculture will keep pace with the im- 

 provements of the day, or that she will ever arrive 

 to the perfection of which she is ('apable. 

 (To be continued-) 



A suFvE CUKE FOR, CoRNs. — A Writer in the Cin- 

 cinnati Whig, says: Having corns, a friend ad- 

 vised me to apply Diacalon, which I did, in a 

 small portion, u]iou linen cloth: I have experi- 

 enced no inconvenience since. 



