MR. KING S ADDRESS. 



ductive. " I suppose," says he, " that ten bushels of rye to 

 the acre, twenty of Indian corn, one ton of EngHsh hay, and 

 two hundred bushels of potatoes, were formerly considered as 

 average crops. Since premiums have been offered, we have 

 claims for from forty to fifty bushels of rye, from one hundred 

 and fifteen to one hundred and twenty-two of Indian corn, from 

 three to four tons of English hay, and from four to five hundred 

 bushels of potatoes. Our improvements have not been confined 

 to single acres ; in several instances the products of entire farms 

 have been more than quadrupled." I will not say that the 

 Essex Agricultural Society has effected so much good, or that 

 it has effected all the good of which it is capable — but I will 

 say, without the fear of contradiction, that your Society has 

 done more good, much more good, than it has ever had credit 

 for. And I ask the observing, experienced, practical farmers, 

 who compose so large a part of this audience, if, within fifteen 

 or twenty years, the produce of many farms within their 

 knowledge has not been nearly doubled ? Have not; the crops 

 of hay, of corn and of other kinds of grain, increased on an 

 average from fifty to one hundred per cent. ? Have not ploughs 

 and other agricultural implements been much improved ? Do 

 not you more frequently hear of cows which yield from fifteen 

 to twenty quarts of milk per day, and which make from ten to 

 sixteen pounds of butter in a week ? Are not working oxen of 

 handsomer appearance, better trained and more powerful ? If 

 you answer yes, as I believe you will with united voices, to 

 what causes will you attribute the improvement ? I ask honest, 

 practical, discriminating farmers to what causes they can attri- 

 bute the improvement but to the influence of Agricultural Soci- 

 eties, to the impulse they have given to enterprise, to the spirit 

 of emulation they have awakened, and to the knowledge they 

 have been the means of diffusing ? The influence of such 

 Associations is not always direct and obvious ; like that of the 

 dew and the air, it is a blessing too common, noiseless and un- 

 ostentatious to be felt or acknowledged by the inconsiderate 

 and unreflecting. There are {evi men who will be long content 

 to follow a rough, hilly and circuitous path while their neighbor 



