84 



enough to grow bright by the friction of the earth, as the slow- 

 moving oxen dragged it along — stimulated more by the whip of 

 the driver than the vigor of their bodies — was the only instrument 

 to break the glebe, the potato, that staple commodity of the mil- 

 lion, was supplied for one-eighth of a dollar per bushel, while the 

 superb instrument, which has now become an object of attraction 

 and almost veneration in the crystal palaces of the world, with the 

 Koohinoor and Minnie rifle, cannot do the same work without the 

 exaction of a whole dollar, or eight times as much. 



It would not seem to be the policy of the agriculturist to com- 

 plain at the extravagant prices of his productions ; but what is 

 the pecuhar blessing of improvements so greatly extolled, if the 

 result of their introduction is chiefly seen in the enhancement of 

 the price of the necessaries of life, to such an extreme, as to drive 

 the people from the homes of their childhood to a country where 

 the boasted civihzations of our section have but just commenced 

 to dawn ? 



With all our commerce, and such manufactures as produce, as 

 if by enchantment, the cities of Lowell, Manchester, Lawrence, &c., 

 were it not for the mechanical industry of our shoemakers, who 

 with their lapstones and waxed ends extort, by the employment 

 of all their time and energies, their sustenance from the West, 

 would not our towns become depopulated, and our hill-sides and 

 valleys suSer the atrophy of neglect ? 



If some one, who relies more on the vain boastings of the press 

 and the assumptions of the present generation, than on facts and 

 figures, feels inchned to question the suggestions we have made, 

 let him give the Avorld the solution of the enigma we have present- 

 ed, in a manner that will convey the truth to the people, and we 

 then shall have gained something more by this report than we 

 expected when we took up the pen. 



There was, however, one j)ecuUarity Avhicli distinguished the 

 Implement Show of this year, and that was, that most of the arti- 

 cles were manufactured in the county. 



There were seven ploughs, which is, after all, the chief, as it is 

 the most ancient of agricultural implements — which, with their 

 polished coulters and their graceful curves, suggested the idea of 

 a greyhound that is anxious to leap to the conquest of his prey ; 

 one " improved " cultivator, which indicates that up to the present 



