&l)c jTavmcr's ittcmtljln ilisttor. 



189 



however, affords no sufficient reason wl 



should discard agrici emistry, all 



it may impair the faith of some who have re- 

 garded llie science will) favor. Duriog the last 

 fifty years, scientific men have done more to ad- 

 vance the cause of agriculture than at any former 

 period of the world. Science will continue to 

 shed light. The agricultural chemist and the 

 practical successful farmer will meet, interchange 

 views and derive mutual benefit. Agricultural 

 books and journals are no longer regarded with 

 supreme contempt. " Book-farming," as it is 

 called, and practical agriculture, are like the sex- 

 es, obeying the natural laws of attraction. 



The report of Mr. Burke and the accompany- 

 ing documents fill a volume of more than 600 

 pages. The work treats of many topics to 

 which I have not alluded ; among others, to 

 sheep husbandry, which is justly becoming an 

 object of importance to many farmers. 



Correspondence of the Visitor. 



Hanover, Sept. 5lh, 1848. 



Dear Sir: The Connecticut River Valley 

 Agricultural Society, composed of the inhabit- 

 ants of Haverhill, Piermont, Orford, Lyme, Han- 

 over, Lebanon, Enfield, Canaan and Dorchpster, 

 will hold its first annual Fair at Lyme on Thurs- 

 day the '28th day of the present month. 



As the President of the Society I woidd ex- 

 tend to you an invitation to make us a visit on 

 that day and witness our first operation. 



We have little the present year to exhibit, ex- 

 cept a full share of zeal and enthusiasm. It 

 would afford me much pleasure to extend to 

 you the hospitalities of my house. 



Cannot you make it conveni mt to ride up 

 here a day or two prior to the Fair, and give me 

 the opportunity to shew you a poor specimen 

 of my own farming interests? On the morning 

 of the 28th we will ride together to Lyme and 

 see what is to be seen. 



I am, sir, respectfully, yours, 



A. O. BREWSTER. 



Hon. I. Hill; 



Concord, Sept. 30, 1848. 



My Dear Sir: It was not until after my re- 

 turn from Hanover on a casual business visit last 

 week, that I received your kind letter: I then 

 informed you that my engagements would pre- 

 vent the pleasure of complying will] your polite 

 invitation. This I now the more regret as it 

 prevented an always-joyous and ever-welcome 

 interview with the elder lady of your house who 

 in years gone by nearly or quite, the length of 

 your life exhibited a taste and skill for the "syl- 

 van .-hades of artificial bowers," for the flower 

 arboratum elegantly devised, and for the beauti- 

 ful display of fruit and other ornamental trees, 

 that perhaps no lady of New Hampshire had 

 then attained. From that day to the present, as 

 the second wife of your respected deceased fa- 

 ther, her advent was welcome to the ancient 

 seat of Science and Learning, the foster parent 

 and nurse of many of the great men of the na- 

 tion, statesmen, lawyers, physicians and divines 

 who were natives of the Granite State. 



Growing more into the porsonal resemblance 

 of that deceased parent who has done most of 

 any man of your county in his own person per- 

 haps for cultivating an improved taste in Agri- 

 culture and Horticulture, I am well pleased to 

 see the son at an early age so well filling the 

 position which has been occupied by both father 

 and grandfather since the first opening settle- 

 ment of that fine part of the Connecticut river 

 valley whose towns along its easterly shore com- 

 prise your agricultural association. There is no 



more pleasant, delightsome, inviting region of 

 the United States than the townships comprising 

 your society : the line of townships correspond- 

 ing to yours on the westerly or Vermont side 

 which make up the green outside of the ribband 

 strip, are perhaps as nearly your equals as would 

 be the line of townships below you on both 

 aides extending all the way to the Massachusetts 

 line through Sullivan and Cheshire forming 

 what formerly was Cheshire county in its whole 

 original limits. In comparatively a few days 

 you will (fitness a railroad all the way on one or 

 the other side of this valley : this road opening 

 to others turning at right angles towards the 

 seaboard will be one of the means which are 

 tending greatly to increase the value of the im- 

 mense agricultural products which your rich 

 valley may he made to produce. On this ac- 

 count 1 am highly gratified to witness "the full 

 share of zeal and enthusiam " of which you 

 speak in the incipient state of your agricultural 

 efforts. Your list of premiums, which I perceiv- 

 ed in the posted handbills of your intended ex- 

 hibition, small though they may be, will do much 

 towards awakening the zeal for improvement in 

 your part of the country. How many of the 

 generations which have successively occupied 

 the farms of your several townships have derived 

 as the fruits of the labors in the soil all the 

 means of physical support and mental culture, 

 leaving a competence as the rich inheritance of 

 the children which stood in the places of their 

 parents! We cannot too highly prize the value 

 of that foundation which the men and women 

 who have passed away left in improvements of 

 the soil composing the towns of your associa- 

 tion. Perhaps no better cultivation may any 

 where be found in the interior of New England 

 than is presented in the towns of Haverhill, 

 Piermont, Orford, Lyme, Hanover, Lebanon, 

 Enfield, Canaan and Dorchester: from an ac- 

 quaintance with many farmers in each and all of 

 those townships during the last forty years, I am 

 able to say that no part of the world to my 

 knowledge has presented a population with 

 higher cultivated mind or intellect, or with a 

 higher or more uniform degree of even prosper- 

 ity in the calling and occupation nearest allied 

 to all that is good and estimable in this land of 

 free and benign institutions. 



While much remains to be done along the 

 whole line of Connecticut river, more lands to 

 be cleared in the upper region running the en- 

 tire length of the original Grafton than in the 

 tier of Cheshire townships down further south, 

 hardly can we realize the extent of benefits to 

 be derived from improvements in all that part of 

 the country which now appears to be the best. 

 The new durtiand for produce which new facili- 

 ties for cheapened transport always bring along 

 with them, must be a spur to the efforts of the 

 Farmers of Grafton County, whose prosperity 

 and success in common with that of all others 

 engaged in honorable and productive employ- 

 ments, by none will he more desired than by 

 Your friend and humble servant, 



ISAAC HILL. 



A. O. Brewster, Esq. 



To the Hon. Isaac Hill: The Committee 

 of Arrangements for the Exhibition by the Essex 

 Agricultural Society at Lynn on the 26ih inst. 

 respectfully invite your attendance upon that oc- 

 casion. The deep interest yon have manifested 

 in agricultural improvements, and the mass of 



sound instruction on the subject that has flo ved 

 from your pen, has awakened r desire, among 

 our farmers, to meet you face to face. Should it 

 be in your power to be with us on that day, bo 

 assured, Sir, that your presence would be greeted 

 with a cordial welcome. Wo do not expect to 

 present any thing extraordinary at the Exhibi- 

 tion, but, deeply impressed with the propriety of 

 these annual assemblies of farmers, that they 

 may better know each other, and profit by a 

 comparison of ideas, we are particularly solici- 

 tous to draw information from the most relia- 

 ble sources. 



I am, sir, most respectfully, 



Your obedient servant, 



J. W. PROCTOR, 



Chairman. 

 Danvers, Sept. IB, 184S. 



Concord, M K, Sept. 30, 1848. 

 J. W. Proctor, Esq. 



Dear Sir — Ever since I received from your 

 hand the highly valued annual publication — done 

 in a better style for preservation and practical use 

 than any thing of the kind 1 had yet seen — of the 

 proceedings of the Old Essex Agricultural Soci- 

 ety in a series of pamphlets of succeeding year?, 

 I had anticipated the delight I should feel at at- 

 tending some one at least of your interesting an- 

 nual exhibitions. Sometimes absolute physical 

 inability and at others conflicting pre-engage- 

 ments have happened in every case in your 

 county, as it has not in some others, to prevent 

 my personal attendance. More than once or 

 twice within the last twenty years has my zeal 

 in the cause of an improved agriculture been 

 warmed and brightened in the noble and munifi- 

 cent exhibitions at the heart of the Common- 

 wealth, where the perseverance and energy of 

 one family alone, if it had done no other service 

 in the State, would place the name of Lincoln 

 as among the best deserving names of the old 

 Bay State for having devoted themselves on ma- 

 ny and repeated successive occasions in unwea- 

 ried efforts to make the annual county lair to 

 pass off creditably to her citizens, and inciting to 

 new efforts the untiring zeal which always 

 should accompany a good cause. Worcester 

 county, bottomed on the industry of its farmers, 

 has become as rich in its manufacturing and 

 mechanical industry as in its agriculture, above 

 other counties and districts that have less of the 

 discouragements of a' hard soil: her ancient 

 shire town, in the recent facilities of railway 

 transportation passing off in several directions, 

 grown into a numerously populated city, is sur- 

 rounded with thriving villages near by every 

 waterfall or at the central points of towns where 

 roads concentrate, whose population and size in 

 perhaps half a hundred different positions al- 

 ready equal if not exceed the size of Worcester 

 itself twenty-five years ago. If the statistics 

 could be reached, how would the amount sur- 

 prise us of money earned and brought into Wor 

 cester county, increasing every year, for the pro- 

 ducts of the farm and of the hand of the artisan 

 and mechanic, the labor of the lingers of woman 

 as well as man ; and these products distributed 

 for u^e not only over the United States, but sent 

 to other nations and distant points of the globe. 

 While writing, the statement of Mr. Bulloch in 

 his address before the Worcester agricultural 

 association, comes in to my purpose in the cal- 

 culation that the industrial products of Worces- 

 ter amount already to the sum of fifteen millions 

 of dollars in a year. As the head and President 



