ADDRESS. i 



patch(^8 of land, wlion pcradvcnturc, tlio rest ol' tlui farm may eitlicr 

 be iiiditterciitly tilled or even going to waste ? 



I do not projij^ to answer these queries ; I have not time ; and 

 whih' 1 liope tljat in some respects we may be slightly improving, 

 we still need a great many more balance sheets of cost and profits 

 of whole farms each year, to excite a more general interest in 

 agriculture. Let us have the figures, is the important question 

 now, and this was well put at a former anniversary by my friend 

 George E. Towne, Esq. 



We wish to know the number of acres in the farm — acres of 

 tillage land. What crop, cost and profit? Mowing land, includ- 

 ing reclaimed bog and meadow. What crop and profit ? Pas- 

 ture lands, with description and what they feed. What profit ? 

 Cows (with breed). What profit, butter, cheese or milk. Horses, 

 (with breed). What profit? Poultry of every description. Cost 

 and profit ? 



But the farmer says he cannot do all this, for he cannot afford 

 to hire labor. Let him try. That is the word. If successful, no 

 young lady of culture will hesitate to unite her fortunes with his. 

 She understands how much less of risk she takes for herself and 

 family, than in the vicissitudes of trade and manufacture. She 

 can, not only enjoy his society more than in any other pursuit what- 

 ever, but she knows full well that the old-fashioned churn exists 

 only in history. Cheese is made in the factory, or milk sold at 

 the door, to say nothing of beef, pork, mutton and poultry taken 

 in similar manner, mostly at live weight, and what is more, at such 

 prices that if our old puritan fathers should ever come back to 

 look after their progeny, they would hang them up for extortion 

 quicker than the}^ did the Salem Witches. 



Cannot afford to hire ! Then why on earth does he not marry 

 early ? putting his boys to work as early, both in seed-time and 

 harvest, and sending them to school the other six months of the 

 year, in the good old-fashioned way. I know this is plain but not 

 popular talk. I am told at the very threshold that it is now the 

 fashion to send our boys to school ten months in the year. But il 

 was not so, ladies and gentlemen, when such men as George Wash- 

 ing-ton, Thomas Jefferson, Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, and Abra- 

 ham Lincoln were boys. It was their training upon the farm thai 

 gave to them their stalwart forms, their physical power, not only 

 to sustain them in their mental efforts, but to grapple successfully, 

 aye triumphantly with the strongest intellects of their age. I next 

 meet another delusion, I might almost say a general hallucination. 



