MR. fay's address. 15 



docile and quiet that they only require the usual fences to keep 

 them within bound. The second objection is a much more serious 

 one, because we have not the remedy in our own hands, unless we 

 keep constantly on the watch against trespassers. Our agricul- 

 tural towns, however, can aid the farmer very much in this matter. 

 There is no more reason why they should not prohibit dogs from 

 running at large, as cattle or any other animal liable to do injury, 

 with such penalties attached to the infraction of any law passsd for 

 preventing this nuisance, as to insure a proper obedience to it. In 

 many parts of Rhode Island, where sheep husbandry has increased 

 very much of late, the farmers have united together to keep off 

 dogs, allowing no person to go over their land if accompanied by 

 one. Many suffer their dogs to roam about, or to be their com- 

 panions in the field and on the road, from inconsiderateness, and 

 when once they come to know the injury caused by them, they are 

 quite ready to join in preventing it. 



There is another subject which does not appear to have received 

 the attention of this Society to the extent which its importance 

 would seem to demand. I refer to a well considered system in the 

 rotation of crops best adapted to our soils, chmate and markets. 

 Chance or convenience is too apt to determine our course of culti- 

 vation, in total disregard of all the principles connected with 

 vegetable habits and growth. Every farmer knows that a continuous 

 cultivation of any plant, takes from the soil those qualities essential 

 to its healthy growth, and that to reproduce it year after year, 

 requires the highest manuring possible, and which, however scien- 

 tifically applied to meet its wants, fails at last to produce a profitable 

 result. We know too that certain crops impoverish the soil more 

 than others ; that all plants ripened for their seed exhaust the land 

 more than those consumed upon it, or removed in a green and 

 incomplete state of growth ; that some crops require deeper tillage 

 and are capable of closer and more constant cultivation than others, 

 which cannot be worked upon until ready for the harvest. These 

 are some of the leading facts, taught by long experience, which 

 should govern us in establishing certain rotations in crops, without 

 which a high state of fertility cannot be maintained. 



The shortest rotation worthy of mention is the four years' course, 

 that is to say, the whole farm passes under the plough and a sum- 

 mer fallow once in four years. The portion which is in roots the 



