80 TRANSACTIONS. 



with the club, and experiments would perhaps show that eh 

 animal mig^ht be fattened on swale hay and turnips alone. 

 Thus practical results of great value to our farmers, would 

 from time to time be arrived at, and questions would be settled 

 which have been discussed for many years, to no purpose, 

 because men did not work together. 



The same may be said of farmers' Institutes, by means of 

 which the highest intelligence of the country would be brought 

 to bear on agricultural subjects, and a large amount of inform- 

 ation in relation to the cultivation of the soil might soon be 

 accumulated. 



But time would fail me, should I attempt to explain the 

 various means by which public and associated effort may be 

 made to act on the progress of agriculture. Individuals are 

 doing much by example to elevate and improve the agricul- 

 ture of the Commonwealth, and whether they are, in all re- 

 spects, strictly practical men or not, they are deserving of 

 lasting remembrance. But there are still some who oppose 

 all the efforts of the friends of improvement, and look with 

 contempt on all the exertions of our societies and their mem- 

 bers, and grow impatient when they find that their expecta- 

 tions are not realized. They forget that every thing which is 

 to be of permanent value, requires the slow development of 

 time and thought. I do not suppose any such are here to- 

 day, but if there are, I can only say to them, plod on in the 

 old style if you will, but be assured that the longer you plod 

 in the ruts of a former time the deeper you wear them, till at 

 last, when you can no longer see to the right hand nor to the 

 left, the tide of progress will sweep over and bury you beneath 

 its current. Do not complain of the ingratitude of the pres- 

 ent and its want of reverence for the past. The old has 

 sometimes opposed the new, but the new would reject the old, 

 only so far as it refuses to do the best it can, to use the light 

 it has rather than grope in utter darkness. 



The present has not lost its reverence for the past, as some 

 suppose. It is only a part of the past that has ceased to 

 command respect. It is that part of it only which was op- 



