SELECTIONS FROM ADDRESSES 



AGRICULTURAL SOCIETIES 



How TO MAKE Farming Profitable. 



[Extracts from an Address by Josiah Nevvhall, Esq., at the last Fair of the 

 Essex Agricultural Society.] 



But a few years since, under the old system of agriculture, 

 farmers became discouraged, believing that the land had be- 

 come exhausted, that its cultivation would no longer afford a 

 living, much less a profit, and some saw no alternative, but a 

 removal to the fertile prairies of the West. The complaint is 

 frequently reiterated, that farming affords but little profit ; that 

 not much more than a living can be obtained. This, in many 

 cases, is but too true ; but an examination into the mode, by 

 which the business hitherto has generally been conducted, will 

 explain the reason. Every man knows, that to encourage the 

 growth of an animal, he must supply it with food, and, to make it 

 profitable, he must supply it liberally. Between the animal and 

 vegetable kingdom, there is a striking analogy ; although the 

 difference between a sentient and a vegetable being is great, 

 still, in relation to food and growth, life and death, there is 

 much similarity. Withhold food from either, and death is the 

 consequence. A man might as well hope to rear his domestic 

 animals with food barely sufficient to keep them alive, and ex- 

 pect them to be profitable, as to attempt to grow rich harvests, 

 without supplying, where needed, the necessary food for the 

 growth of his plants. 



