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in this county :—And in one of these varieties, the plum, we may safely 
challenge the Union to the production of finer specimens. Affording, as our 
State does, a native plum of excellent qualities for preserving and cook¬ 
ing purposes, and even for eating fresh from the tree, it is but natural to 
conclude that our cultivated varieties would be superior. Ours, too, is a 
natural grape soil. A few acres of this delicious fruit, cultivated with 
reference to the market for table use, might be raised upon almost every 
farm in the county, and at an annual nett profit of hundreds of dollars 
per acre. And the same may be said of fruits in general. Add to the 
idea of making money by fruit culture, another far more important one, 
viz : that ripe fruit is a panacea for diseases, and especially for those 
common to this climate, instead of being, as some have thought, the cause 
of the disease; and who that cares for the greatest and best of temporal 
blessings, health, "will longer be without it, if it be in his power to raise 
or procure it. Can there be any other reason why fruit has been so little 
cultivated here than the obvious one, that men make haste to be rich, 
and are not willing to wait a few short years till trees can grow to make 
them so. Living for the present only, they forget that those are to come 
after them who may enjoy the fruits of their labor, if they do not; as they 
now enjoy the benefits of the toil of their predecessors. Is it not beneath 
the dignity and nature of man to live for himself and the present alone? 
The beast of the field do as much. 
Three-fourths of the population of the United States is made up of fam- 
dies engaged in agriculture, while the other fourth is scarcely less inter¬ 
ested in it than if actually following it as an occupation. Not a man, wo¬ 
man or child who lives in a civilized state, eating, drinking and dressing 
according to the habits of civilized life, who is not dependent upon the 
farmer. Little as those who fill up our large towns think of this and care 
about the seasons or crops, let but a year of famine come, or even a cold 
season like that of 1816 , and the tongue of hunger would speak in trumpet 
tones of the interest of all classes, high and low, rich and poor, in the 
science of agriculture. The story which you have all heard of the woman 
who said that “ she did not care how short the crops were for she bought her 
bread,” has its parallel in no small number of cases, among those who 
seem to think, that, as a matter of course, they shall have the early and 
the latter rain, and that crops will continue to grow and flocks to increase. 
