ADDRESS. 



Grentlemen of the Society : 



I should be doing injustice to my own feelings did I fail to 

 acknowledge the compliment contained in your invitation to 

 address you, now for the third time, at your annual exhibition. 

 The custom which has prevailed here, since the foundation of 

 your society, has confined the choice of the annual speaker to 

 the citizens of Essex county, and has secured for you a series 

 of addresses upon almost every question connected with practi- 

 cal farming as conducted in your own community. The ad- 

 dresses delivered on these occasions, numbering now nearly 

 sixty, contain much of the thought and speculation which have 

 occupied the minds of our farmers during the last half century, 

 and they constitute a body of agricultural literature of the 

 highest value to all who are ready to be guided by suggestions 

 drawn from experiences in conducting the affairs of the farm. 

 To the advice and encouragement to be found in these annual 

 papers I am happy to contribute my share, with diffidence with 

 regard to my own capacity to follow, even with unequal steps, 

 such teachers as Pickering, Newell and Colman of the genera- 

 tion that is gone, and such practical guides as have addressed 

 you in our own day. 



I shall not, on this occasion, endeavor to pursue the path 

 which has been laid down by the practical farmers who have 



