12 ADDRESS. 



pounds, best for light soils, like much of his. In manures and com- 

 posts there was nothing he did not resort to. His crop of grass 

 was excellent. In his haystacks, for he had no barns except for 

 his cattle, I noticed that he would first put a layer of wheat, or oat 

 straw, then of hay, which was cut down and fed out together to his 

 stock. 



Without wearying you with more details, what do you think was 

 the income of this one hundred and fifty acres, not so good by na- 

 ture as the Wilder farm, not three miles from where we are sitting ? 

 £400, or $2000 per year, over and above rent, exorbitant taxes, 

 interests and cost of carrying it on, while the whole secret of suc- 

 cess was system, industry of his family, and making everything tell. 

 Mr. Brown, in the after part of the day, was too busy to go with 

 me to Tunbridge Wells, five miles, and sent his daughter with the 

 carriage. In closing, I can only wish that the farmers of this So- 

 ciety could have been there instead of myself. 



I have thus glanced at some facts and suggestions hastily put to- 

 gether in the time at my control. I have often wished I had been 

 a farmer. I have often pictured to my imagination a beautiful 

 farm-house, grounds handsomely laid out, the lowing of herds and 

 bleating of the sheep, flowers, rare plants and noble trees. 



The senses, the eye and the ear, are avenues through which life's 

 deepest fountains are searched and moved; and nothing affects 

 them like the embellished grounds of a farm. Labor upon the soil 

 is the best law of man's being. It is the preparation for another 

 and better life. 



Thanking you for your patience, I close with a single political 

 thought. Massachusetts, with so small a territory, only 7000 square 

 miles, demands of her sons the cultivation of every acre, so far as 

 possible to do so ; every facility, too, for a full development of all 

 her resources. The quickest, cheapest transit in her every section 

 for intercommunication with the produce of her farms and manu- 

 factures. 



We must, in short, re-people our acres if we continue to maintain 

 our noble prestige and political pre-eminence. Unless we do this, 

 by the growth of our Western sister States, quadruple and quin- 

 tuple in territory, we must in the end, even with our noble race of 

 men, pale away to insignificance. 



In short, we must afi^ord any and every facility to our people, and 

 do away with every obstacle that stands in our path. We can in 

 this way, and in this way only, sustain the most dense, active, in- 

 dustrious and therefore virtuous population in the whole sisterhood 

 of States. 



