AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 5 17 



the OX for five or six years works hard on the farm, and while at 

 work does what five men could not do in severe labor, and so he 

 pays the farm full profit besides becoming at the end of his most 

 useful career, the fatted ox, worth to his master one hundred dol- 

 lars cash, or more. 



There is no scheme of farm labor, which can dispense with the 

 ox, for if horses were as plenty and as cheap as cats and dogs, 

 they cannot pay like the ox> 



But for our vast prairies, like level seas, steam-plows are as 

 appropriate as steam ships on oceans; and are doubtless practica- 

 ble, on account of the general uniform texture of their soils, free 

 from stones, roots, and all other impediments to the mechanic 

 steadiness of the steam plow. 



LONG ISLAND. 



There appeared in a magazine, a few days ago, a renewal of the 

 foolish attacks on the soil of this beautiful island. A committee 

 of nearly 200 gentlemen, of various but most respectable charac- 

 ter, including several clergymen of the island, many citizens of 

 advanced age, who had no interest in the matter except to ascer- 

 tain facts, published their report on this subject in the Transac- 

 tions of the American Institute, which puts down the old senseless 

 cry of barren Long Island, 



The Secretary read an article on the subject from the Home 

 Journal: 



I was much gratified by a brief article in a late number of the 

 Home Journal, advising the Metropolitan lovers of tlie rural to 

 secure for residences the innumerable sites upon Long Island. 

 Your sentiments are entirely in consonance with the views I have 

 ever entertained. As a traveler, contemplating the strange con- 

 trasts of beauty and deformity, of high culture and utter desola- 

 tion, which this lovely island presents, I have often wondered 

 that its wastes had not long ago been transformed into the beau- 

 tiful and cultivated district it is so susceptible of being made. 

 Under the impulses of Flemish art and industry, it would soon 

 become a universal garden and fruitery. Not only the magnifi- 

 cent ridge to which you refer, but* the borders of the beautiful 



