MR. Huntington's address. 17 



tance. I commend this subject to the special atten- 

 tion of the seaboard farmers, who are mainly inter- 

 ested in these lands. 



Land that is worth cultivating at all, is worth 

 cultivating well. If, therefore, an individual find 

 himself in the possession of a farm which will not 

 reimburse the expense of good husbandry, he had 

 better abandon it at once, for all experience teaches, 

 that no man can afford to be a farmer under a system 

 of bad husbandry. The earth was not made for 

 thriftless, inefficient, or unskilful cultivators, nor will 

 it yield to such its full increase. 



No farmer should feel that he discharges his whole 

 duty, unless the effect of his cultivation, is to make 

 his farm better every year. He may be sure that it 

 is capable of an indefinite improvement, and his con- 

 stant aim should be, to increase and multiply its 

 resources, and productive power. The question 

 should not be, whether fifty or an hundred dollars' 

 judiciously expended in labor or otherwise will add 

 so much to the saleable value of his estate, but 

 whether he can receive it back again with good in- 

 terest. His mode of cultivation should not be based 

 on any idea of the present or prospective value of 

 his farm in the market, but on that of a permanent 

 and continued possession from generation to genera- 

 tion ; and that if he do not reap all the benefits, 

 himself, he is laying up a certain treasure for his 

 descendants. 



One principal reason, I apprehend, why more 

 attention is not paid by our farmers to the cultivation 

 of fruit trees, is that they do not promise an immediate 

 profit. The trees must be planted — they must be 

 nursed in their early growth, and some seven or ten 

 years must elapse, before they will yield any consid- 

 erable profit. Whereas, the wise and sagacious 

 cultivator calculates remote as well as immediate profit. 

 If he sees that fifty or an hundred apple-trees, for 

 instance, planted by the side of his fields, or in a 

 lot set apart for this purpose, will begin to yield a 

 3 



