PRESIDENT HITCHCOCK'S ADDRESS. 173 



carriage. All may be accounted for on the principles of judi- 

 cious manuring and careful industrious cultivation. On the 

 continent, especially in Germany, their annual fairs bring to- 

 gether the farmers and peasants of all the surrounding country, 

 when their ambition and industry are stimulated by a variety 

 of fetes and the distribution of prizes to successful competitors, 

 and whilst princes, dukes, and barons are engaged in awarding 

 prizes to those who have been most successful in the cultivation 

 of grains and cattle, their lovely wives are occupied in a humble 

 but much more lovely scene, in complimenting and distributing 

 premiums to the industrious housewife, for her fine specimens 

 of fruit, her butter and cheese, her linen clothes, weaving, knit- 

 ting, and other manufactures. I have no doubt I shall be ridi- 

 culed for my want of taste, when I state, that to me the Grand 

 Duchess of Baden, presenting a silver cup to a peasant girl, before 

 an assembled crowd of farmers and nobility, for the finest spe- 

 cimen of manufactured gloves, was a more interesting sight 

 than that of the gay queen Victoria, racing through St. James's 

 Park, with fifty fools at her heels, striving not to be distanced by 

 their lovely mistress." — (Southern Cabinet for Jan., 1840, p. 4.) 

 In this country, we are beginning to realize similar fruits from 

 enlightened agriculture, under the fostering care of Agricultural 

 Societies. Many a noble farm in New England, with its pro- 

 duce doubled or trebled within a few years, testifies to their 

 influence. Out of New England a similar progress is made. 

 I refer, for a single example, to the farm of James Gowen, near 

 Philadelphia. Ten years ago he took possession of it in a very 

 worn out condition. Now he speaks of 100 bushels of corn, 

 400 bushels of potatoes, and 50 bushels of wheat, as common 

 crops. This same leaven is beginning powerfully to work in this 

 delightful valley. Our farmers have been fearful that they 

 could not compete with the products of the West and South, 

 poured in upon them through the great iron sluice-ways that 

 steam has forced open. But let them unite yankee industry 

 and perseverance to scientific agriculture, and I will put them 

 against the world. The more rail -roads we have the better ; 

 for they will only bring the market nearer. Instead of discour- 

 aging the farmer, they should stimulate him to seize upon and 



