8 MR. fay's addkess. 



berinfT and surpassing in actual value overytliing else, fat cattle 

 and still fatter pigs included, and demonstrating, in the most un- 

 mistakable manner, the important position that machinery now takes 

 on a well managed farm. The show-yard for implements occupies 

 several acres, regularly laid out, leaving wide spaces between the 

 rows of temporary buildings erected to contain them, so that every 

 opportunity is afforded for examining each article and to learn the 

 principles of its construction and its method of working. 



Leaving this subject, which I have not dwelt upon longer than its 

 importance seemed to demand, I propose next to call your attention 

 to the growth of roots, as an indispensable part of every good 

 system of cultivation. This is very much neglected by us, although 

 much of our soil is extremely well calculated to produce them. A 

 neighbor of the late Daniel Webster, who was certainly one of the 

 best farmers New England has ever produced, once applied to him 

 to know how he should proceed to improve his farm, which, as he 

 said without doubt very truly, was pretty much run out ; that is to 

 say, it had been cropped without system and without manure, until 

 nothing would grow up on it, while side by side were the luxuriant 

 fields of Mr. Webster. His reply was, " Grow turnips." This 

 laconic answer neither edified nor satisfied the querist. He wanted 

 to know what wonderful virtue there could be in a turnip, which 

 was to work such remarkable changes on his farm, only knowing 

 the vegetable to be a very good accompaniment to a leg of boiled 

 mutton, or a tolerable addition to a broth. He asked, therefore 

 naturally enough, what growing turnips had to do with making his 

 farm more productive. Mr. Webster replied, he had not then time to 

 go into the matter, as it would embrace the whole science of farming ; 

 he could only say this : to grow turnips, the land must be well 

 ploughed, highly manured and kept free from weeds. It was a crop, 

 which in a proper rotation prepared the land in the best manner for 

 those which follow it ; more than this, it would do well on his light 

 loams, although perhaps better adapted for a heavier soil. Its 

 yield was large and bulky, and to dispose of it to the best advantage, 

 it ought to be fed off the farm to the cattle during the winter ; to 

 do this, he would be forced to increase his stock, and in this way 

 he would augment his barn yard manure, which in its turn would 

 add to the fertility of his soil. He would have better cattle, better 

 and more pigs, and if he kept a few sheep, as every farmer should 



