322 [Assembly 



the most appropriate mixtures and dressings for particular soils and 

 crops and by understanding better the habits of different plants, and 

 the qualities of different animals, -which are capable of being improved, 

 with the best modes effecting a salutary change in them. 



Thus, for instance, in this age of light, and in a new. country, can 

 any one be unable to see the advantages of obtaining an implement in 

 husbandry, by which one man can perform, in a day, double what he 

 could before 7 or which will cost but half the price of a former one ? 

 or which, at the same expense, will last twice as long 1 By thus 

 cheapening production, all live at less expense, as all are consumers 

 of food and clothing ; and though some may be obliged, at first, to 

 quit their old mode of employment, especially when new machines for 

 manufacturing are invented, yet the use of such improvements increases 

 so rapidly, that more persons, ere long, are employed in the same 

 business, and often at higher wages, as has been most emphatically 

 shown by the invention of the art of printing, to multiply copies, 

 and of modern machinery, to spin and weave cotton. Your President 

 has happily enlarged on this, a few minutes ago. It is hoped, there- 

 fore, that, at least in this country and age, we have but few Norwich 

 rioters, so ignorant as to be willing to destroy stocking-frames, because 

 they save labour, and fewer Lord Byrons, so little versed in political 

 economy, as to advocate their cause in an assembled parliament. 



Nearly a century ago, a Scotch mother, according to Sir Walter 

 Scott, objected to her son's using, what she called, a "new-fangled 

 machine for dighting the corn from the chaff; thus impiously thwart- 

 ing the will of Divine Providence, by raising wind for her lady- 

 ship's own particular use, by human art, instead of soliciting it by 

 prayer," &c. But now there is no American, it is believed, and, 

 peradventure, no Scotchman, so far behind the present exciting and 

 well informed age, as to raise a hue and cry against any new labour- 

 saving machinery. One obstacle to its rapid increase in agriculture 

 will be thus more fully removed, and neither winnowing nor threshing 

 machines, nor others of like value, be opposed, on the ground that 

 they are irreligious, or because they save so much manual labour. 

 Instead of that, by the increase of intelligence, all labour-saving 

 machinery in farming bids fair to become more widely introduced 



