DECLINE OF NEW ENGLAND AGRICULTURE. 19 



represent the intelligence and refinement of the present genera- 

 tion, but the simple manners, homely virtues, pious trust and 

 warm-hearted liospitality that characterized his ancestry. With 

 a practical education, let him be a good chemist, and he is sure 

 to be a good farmer. 



Although I have attained the limit which I prescribed for 

 myself in this address, I must crave your indulgence to say a 

 word about English and Belgian agriculture. Belgium with 

 only 11,373 square miles, yet sustains a population of 5,000,000, 

 and is made by the hand of labor a garden. In my two visits 

 there tlie past year, I was unable to see what possible advantages 

 it had over Massachusetts, save a little larger territory and beds 

 of coal — in fact in the broken character and face of the country 

 and its soil, as in England, especially in the county of Kent, 

 with the same cultivation, I could almost imagine myself at 

 home — as England and Belgium are confessedly so similar in 

 soil and climate. I will describe a visit which I made to 

 Benjamin Brown, Esq., a tenant farmer in Tunbridge, Kent. I 

 told him that I came for information, and was welcomed with 

 that warm English hospitality so grateful to a stranger. He 

 insisted upon my making his house my home. 



When his boys returned from their work, the daughters and 

 mother had prepared an excellent supper. I found them all 

 full of culture and taste, devouring with avidity such informa- 

 tion as I could impart about our country. I forgot what 

 became of the evening in this lovely family, till I was asked to 

 join in a hymn of praise to God in one of our well-known airs. 

 Then one of the daughters took the organ as easily as she had 

 taken the frying pan three hours before. After kneeling in prayer 

 I was ushered to my sleeping room, " neat as wax," with quaint 

 old furniture. Before I dozed and slept I came to this conclu- 

 sion, that if five righteous men could have saved Sodom, Eng- 

 land, with all her sins, was still safe. 



Cock crowing and turkey gobbling were my breakfast boll ; 

 afterwards came the routine of the evening prayer system every- 

 where ; the morning hours, measured and divided as our own 

 existence is spanned by an Almighty Power. 



One of the daughters invited me to visit her flower garden. 

 1 hope if ever she visits me it will be in the winter. 



Mr. Brown now took me over his farm. Like most English 



