ADDRESS. 



Mr. President and Gentlemen, 



The seventeenth anniversary of your Society has brought 

 together the Farmers of tlie County, to exchange their friendly 

 greetings and heartfelt congratulations ; it has given you oppor- 

 tunity to renew and extend your acquaintance amongst men of 

 common habits, feelings and pursuits — to take by the hand 

 many practical and enterprising husbandmen in whom you have 

 long been interested — men who have instructed and encour- 

 aged 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 would still have deserved all the countenance and 

 encouragement which it has received from the State and from 

 an enlightened community. But social enjoyment and an 

 occasional relaxation from the tediousness of business are not 

 the only, nor the principal benefits which have resulted from 

 your 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 erro- 

 neous, but long cherished opinions, by difi^lising knowledge and 

 encouraging enterprise and industry. A worthy clergyman, 

 himself a practical farmer, says that the expense of cultivation 

 in the county of Plymouth 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 pro- 



