ADDRESS. 



Agriculture is a subject on which it is difficult to say any 

 thing that has the merit of being both original and useful. In 

 England about seven hundred different volumes have been pub- 

 lished on this subject within the last thirty years. Though 

 our own country has not been so prolific in agricultural publi- 

 cations, yet more has been written than most farmers have 

 time and inclination to peruse. It is not with the expectation 

 of communicating any original information on this topic, that 

 I have been induced to comply with the request of the Trus- 

 tees to make some remarks on this occasion, but from a wish 

 to call your attention to this most important of all arts, to some 

 of the means by which it may be improved in this county, and 

 to some of the motives to make spirited and vigorous exertions 

 for that purpose. 



In a poem on Agriculture, and one of the finest ever written 

 on any subject, we are told that it was not the will of the 

 Deity that the mode of cultivating the earth should be easy, 

 but that it should require art and labour to sharpen the minds 

 of men by the cares and difticulties attending it.* Though this 

 is the sentiment of a heathen poet, every practical farmer is 

 convinced that it is no fiction. 



In sacred writ we are informed that the earth was cursed 

 for the transgression of man, that it should bring forth thorns 

 and thistles, and that man should eat bread in the sweat of his 



*Pater ipse colendi 

 Haud facilem esse viam voluil, primusque per artem 

 Movit ag;ros, curls acuens mortalia corda. 



Georgica I. 121. 



