16 MR. gage's address. 



human support, and multiply the national resources ; 

 you also fan the flame of public zeal. Farmers are 

 looked to, for sound sentiments touching the public 

 interests. Your situation, your pursuits, your gener- 

 al respect for moral and religious principle, are favor- 

 able to the cultivation of such sentiments. The great- 

 er the good influence you exert, the better for our 

 land. And whatever improvements are made in your 

 important pursuit, will be the means of increasing 

 your general influence. All the ripe fruits of your 

 past experience ; every Anniversary of your Associa- 

 tion, by which a spirit of inquiry, in your pursuit, is 

 awakened ; eflfort encouraged ; good, feeling among 

 one another promoted ; is a public benefit. And 

 should true patriotism slumber elsewhere, have we 

 not reason, in the past history of our land, to believe 

 it will continue to warm the hearts and nerve the arms 

 of our husbandmen ? 



The improvements, which skill and effort have al- 

 ready eftected, in agriculture, not only confer a well- 

 merited encomium upon its intelhgent friends, but 

 also afford the strongest incentives to perseverance. 

 The benefits resulting from an improved scientific 

 mode of cultivation have been signally shewn in the 

 British Isles. In France, two thirds of the laboring 

 people, we are told, are employed in agriculture ; 

 while so much more perfect is the system in Great 

 Britain, that less than one third are occupied in this 

 pursuit — hence, the multitudes engaged in com- 

 merce and manufactures. The value of the annual 

 excess of British over French agricultural products, 

 a few years ago, was estimated at twenty-four milHons 



