MR. hazen's address. 21 



lands of the neighboring province of Holland refuse to yield to a 

 less judicious management. 



Few subjects require more accurate calculation than those 

 which belong to the economy of agriculture. The readers of 

 the New England Farmer, and there are probably few members 

 of this Society, who do not come within that description, will 

 recollect a paragraph contained in that paper a few weeks since, 

 staling the result of a calculation that had been made between 

 having bars, or a gate for our inclosure, by which it was proved 

 that if the bars were to be taken down once a day for one year, 

 the difference in time would pay for three gates. This is a spe- 

 cimen of the computations that are to be made under this head. 

 They are not questions of mere curiosity, but they result in reali- 

 ties of profit or loss. Suppose also the instance of a plough : 

 it will last several years, but it is of inferior construction, will not 

 do good work, and requires the application of more strength than 

 another that might be obtained. Shall he continue to use it, or 

 shall it be disposed of at any sacrifice ? Without a knowledge 

 of the structure of ploughs, and without a practised judgment, 

 the farmer may never discover its defects, or should he make 

 the discovery and attempt an exchange, he may obtain another 

 just as defective. Without information he will not know the 

 latest improvements. In order to decide correctly he should un- 

 derstand precisely the defects of the old implement, what change 

 in its construction would adapt it to his own land, and the com- 

 parative advantagesof a new one, and the expense of an exchange. 

 If he means to conduct his business with certainty he will make 

 these calculations, and not leave the result to time and chance ; 

 to the time when by chance he may bargain with a neighbor for 

 a plough still worse perhaps than his own, or until it is worn 

 out ; and to the chance that it may require extra labor equal to 

 the whole amount of what would otherwise have been his clear 

 profits, — and effecting in the end a diminution of his property 

 to many times its value. The manufacturer rejects, without 

 a moment's hesitation, machinery found to be defective, and 

 supplies its place by the best that can be fabricated. 



Such are a few of the instances which may illustrate the ue- 



