24 ADDRESS. 



victions a half century old, or to settle down contentedly to the raising 

 of a dull routine of crops in regular rotation, and for no particular 

 reason, save that their fathers and grandfathers did the same before 

 tbem. 



It seems to me that the discovery and application of steam to loco- 

 motion and transportation, has imparted to the age something of its own 

 fastness and rapidity, and that even as the employment of this tremen- 

 dous agent in mechanics, has revolutionized all mechanism, so the swift- 

 ness which it has somehow imparted as a characteristic feature to the 

 age, has rendered accessary to the farmer, as to others, new modes of 

 thinking and acting, new methods and new manners. 



I beheve that the New England farmer of the future, must be a very 

 different man from the New England farmer of the past, in order to do the 

 work that the future calls for, as well as it has been done in the past ; 

 — that the keen, shrewd, bard-working man of instinct, guess and obser- 

 vation, must give way to the man of system, science and exact knowl- 

 edge ; — that in short, agriculture in the near future, is to be conducted 

 upon the same principles, and governed by the same rules, which under- 

 lie and control all other business interests. Pardon me if in this belief, 

 and actuated by a desire to be of such use as I might, in speeding a 

 change which seems to me inevitable and necessary, I have seemed too 

 freely to offer advice and suggestions, to men of capacity and intelligence, 

 fully equal, if not superior to my own. 



