10 



and whole farms lie on a declivity, I am persuaded great 

 advantages might be derived from this use of water. A few 

 days labor would add some tons of fine hay to your annual 

 income. To the agriculturist this must be considered a 

 staple article. It is the support of your animals, and the 

 means of enriching your arable lands, and gathering from 

 thence a golden harvest. 



Upon the culture of plants, I have time to say but a word, 

 and that is, treat them not with neglect. They require 

 your friendly visits, and the repeated application of the hoe. 

 The garden will demand your daily attention. This may 

 be a pleasant resort, when you have borne the heat and bur- 

 den of the day, and the evening tide invites to meditation. 

 There you may breathe the fragrant air, succor the young 

 plants emerging from the earth, and watch their progress 

 through all their changing forms. 



The cultivation of trees is a subject to which, I think, I 

 may with great propriety invite your attention. Not only 

 would I recommend to every farmer, an orchard of choice 

 fruit, well fenced, and well pruned, but a thrifty wood lot, 

 in which no grazing animal should feed, and from which 

 fuel and timber should be cut with care. We ought to hve 

 not only for ourselves, but for our children, and for poster- 

 ity. Situated in a region where much fuel is absolutely 

 necessary to a comfortable existence, where coal mines are 

 not to be found, and where the demand for lumber is in- 

 creasing with the w^ealth and population of the country, 

 our forests already thinned or made bare, — there is great 

 reason to apprehend that in the next and succeeding gener- 

 ations, the scarcity of fuel and lumber will diminish your 

 population — that the expenses will absorb a great "portion 

 of the income of your fertile and well cultivated farms, and 

 your splendid villages and temples fall to decay. The time 

 seems to have arrived when, instead of enlarging our fields, 

 we must better improve them ; instead of making sti'ip and 



