JOSIAH NEWHALUS ADDRESS. 197 



Aside from the disease, I would remark, that the practice of 

 planting the largest and over-ripened potatoes, has a tendency 

 to enfeeble the plant and shorten the crop. While all seeds, 

 perfectly ripened, produce the best plants, it ought to be remem- 

 bered, that a potato is not a seed. While, therefore, well 

 ripened potatoes are the finest for the table, they are the least fit 

 to plant. A potato, perfectly ripened, has lost much of its vege- 

 tative power, and, when planted, sends up feeble shoots, and 

 frequently produces a small crop, whereas such as have not 

 arrived at maturity in the autumn, when planted in the spring, 

 come up strong and vigorous plants, and produce large and bet- 

 ter crops. 



The pursuit of agriculture is not only favorable to man's phys- 

 ical well-being, but is eminently conducive to the improve- 

 ment of his moral nature. The farmer is that favored being, 

 who is permitted, as it were, to stand in the laboratory of the 

 Infinite One. While many of those engaged in other useful and 

 important occupations, are necessarily confined within the nar- 

 row limits of their study or work-shop, his office or place of 

 business is the vast temple of nature. He seems, more than 

 others, by his daily occupation, to be admitted to nearer ap- 

 proaches to Him, whose humble co-operator he is, in producing 

 the means of sustaining life. While the artist and mechanic, 

 by their skill and ingenuity, as they operate upon dead matter, 

 can produce results in accordance with their wishes, he feels 

 that, in dealing with the vital principle, without the direct 

 smiles of Heaven upon his labors, he can produce nothing. 

 When the rain is withheld, and the " heavens become as brass, 

 and the earth as iron," and vegetation seems to be perishing, 

 how often is his eye directed to the horizon, that perchance he 

 may see, as did the servant of the prophet, a cloud rising, 

 though not larger than a man's hand, and giving promise of the 

 needful blessing. He beholds, therefore, with the deepest in- 

 terest, the progress of vegetation, from the opening of the vernal 

 season, to the closing autumn. When the mighty forces of na- 

 ture are quiescent, he sees their silent energy in the beaming 

 sun, and the gentle zephyr. And in their awful manifestations, 

 he recognizes, in the lightning's gleam, the glance of that eye, 



