344 j Assembly 



to a ton of hay. Throwing on coarse salt is throwing away money, 

 except Qs it becomes manure. Between these stacks of clover, in 

 point of goodness, I found no difference, the cattle liked the straw 

 as well as the clover; it had acquired the flavor of the clover. Both 

 mows kept green all winter. I got my straw by threshing my neigh- 

 bor's grain for it. 



Mr. Van Wyck. — I have heard Mr. Sickles' report on the grain 

 and flour preserver of Stafford, with great pleasure; the importance 

 of it cannot be magnified. 



Mr.Meigs. — Even that our domestic bread may be freed from the 

 evils of musk and so»ir so extensively felt. 



AGKICULTURE OF Ol.D. 



Mr. Meigs. — In the first edition of Dryden's Virgil, published in 

 London by the Tonsons, in 1763, the Preface by W^illiam Walsh, 

 contains the following remarks, which we think worth reading again 

 in our time. 



Mr Walsh says, speaking of Virgil's pastorals: "We figure the 

 ancient countryman like our own, leading a painful life in poverty 

 and contempt, without \vh, courage, or education. But men had 

 quite different notions of things, for the first thousand years of the 

 world. Health and strength were then in more esteem than the re- 

 finements of pleasure; and it was accounted a great deal more honora- 

 ble to till the ground, or keep a flock of sheep, than to dissolve in 

 wantonness and effeminating sloth. 



There are still left points of the ancient esteem for husbandry 

 and their plain fashion of life in many. Sirnaraes and Escutcheons 

 of the most ancient families, even those of the greatest kings. The 

 roses, the lilies, the thistle, &c. Eight hundred years ago Charle- 

 magne ordered his children to be instructed in some profession. 

 Eif^ht hundred years before that, Augustus Caesar wore no clothes 

 but those made for him by the Empress and her daughter. Olympia 

 did the same for Alexander the Great. Nor will (the reader) wonder 

 that the Romans sent for a Dictator from the plough, a man of four 

 acres, too little a spot now for the orchard, or kitchen garden of a 

 private gentleman. 



