DR. spoffop.d's address. 9 



turn Niagara to a mill seat : but furnishes a home market, and 

 increases the necessity and the reward of agricultural industry : 

 and the time is at hand when railroads shall traverse our mountain 

 valleys, and every article shall be trundled with ease and veloci- 

 ty from the place of supply to the place of consumption. 

 In pursuing the subject 1 propose 



First — to examine the advantages we enjoy, in this county, 

 as an agricultural community : and compare them with advanta- 

 ges in other parts of the country. 



Secondly — to notice some of the most essential circumstances 

 which contribute to develop and improve these advantages. 



As to the advantages we enjoy it is highly desirable that we 

 form a correct estimate. Truth is always desirable, and this is 

 peculiarly so, when it enables us to place a proper value upon 

 our own property ; and prevents our envying others the enjoy- 

 ment of theirs, when perhaps our own is most valuable. 



Such has been the rage for western emigration, for the last 

 twenty years, that the soil of New England has, in the estimation 

 of good judges, been greatly undervalued. New lands, to be 

 bought for a trifle, and which being neiv, would naturally produce 

 a few large crops, have allured many a youth from advanta- 

 ges which he and his family will have cause to regret for many 

 generations. We have not a soil which will yield copiously 

 without assiduous cultivation, 'tis true ; but we have a soil which 

 as richly repays the labor and expense bestowed as in any part 

 of the world. 



It is yet to be proved whether the soils in the w-estern States, 

 after a hundred years of cultivation, will be better than ours: 

 and it is further yet to be proved, whether their sand and 

 alluvion will as well sustain the manures necessary to recover an 

 exhausted soil, as our own granite base. 



Larger crops than are here obtained, wherever the hand of 

 the diligent applies the plough and manure with liberality, if at- 

 tainable, are hardly desirable. A few spots in which an impro- 

 ved system of agriculture has been introduced, have proved the 

 boundless resources which our soil may supply, whenever our 

 people shall be induced to apply their energies to this branch 



