Litchfield enquirer., 1870-10-06
ADDRESS OF R. GOODMAN, ESQ.
 OF LENOX, MASS, BEFORE THE LITCHFIELD co. AGRICUL TURAL SOCIETY, SEPT. 22, 1870.

BEFORE THE LITCHFIELD co. AGRICUL-
 TURAL SOCIETY, SEPT. 22, 1870.
 accept the invitation to deliver the ad- dress before your Society, for several rea- sons: Though, for the past dozen years, a farmer in Massachusetts, I belong in Con- necticut, for though I can't say as did 8 young lady when asked if certain city was her native place" We'll, yes, part of the time"-yet, as my ancestors came to Hart ford with Rev. Mir. Hooker at its first set clement, and their descendants, down to my fathers day, continued to reside there, and my youth was spent there, I claim a common heritage with you in the reputa- tion of the State. Another reason was, that desired to visit for the first time your beautiful village and County, illustrious from the many eminent persons who have been born here, and who now adorn the Pulpit, the Bench, the Bar, the Medical, and I may add, the Agricultural profess ions. Equally with the other reasons, I desired to see the staple of your County. the men and women, who, in tho peaceful avocations of farming that mother and nurse of all arts - which forms and strengthens population, creates and main- tains manufactures, gives employment to opens to nations the surest channels of op- ulence-are ennobling themselves, and strengthening the bonds of we'll regulated society. The cultivators of the soil, the agricultural class, constitute in this coun- try the basis of society, the foundation of our social and political system-they, diff fering from the same class in other coun- tries, are the owners of the soil, and con- sequently most deeply interested in the welfare, stability and progress of our in- stitutions; and yet, while vast improve ments have been accomplished in every branch of husbandry-while science and practice have brought forth abundant fruits of their united skill, donbling within the last ten years the produce of your farms. improving the domestic animals. whilst mortgages have been removed, debts paid off, the value of your acres doubled, the same cry comes up that farming is disa- greeable and unremunerating in New Eng land, and our young men and maidens hasten to swell the crusade to the West, or take up their hne of march to the New Je- rusalems-the cities on the plains. where the streets are expected to be paved with golden bricks-but are found like place not to be named in polite society-paved only with promises that break to the hope. It is worth while for us to consider togeth- CT for brief period, whether this dissatis. faction with our calling is not owing more to the disadvantages attending it from a deficient education in it's preparatory sta ges, and whether, by proper course of study. .and more general diffusion of intelli- gence in the line of our avocation, the pro- fits of agricultural processes would not be advanced. it's paths made more pleasant, and our sons and daughters attracted to it, rather than repelled from it. We don't have to abandon the old homesteads in New England, but rather to attract back to their primitive homes the descendants of the fathers, and we can only do this by de- vising means by which men of ofintellect can find scope enough for all their energies on one or two hundred acre farm, and intel- igence, culture, and refinement in the vi. cinity to solace their leisure hours. Pleas. ure must be combined with profit to make any occupation in life agreeable and satis- flying to it's possessor.
 In Connecticut and New England, gene erally, century ago, an acre of wheat produced 28 to 30 bushels, and other crops in proportion, and the rate has not in- creased but rather diminished in many portions of the Eastern States, owing to an improper mode of farming, while in oth- CT countries the product per acre has more than doubled. True, good deal of the land has been like self elf-righteousness-the more a man has, the poorer he is off--yet, had it not been for the ever-opening fields at the West, our cultivation of the soil would have been more perfect. and we should have had, as in England and Flu rope, which have to support large multi tude on 8 small area, a more. scientific az. riculture, and understood and practised the application of capital to farming, with the same profitable results as our .trans-at- lantic brethren. An English farmer, on four hundred acres, invests in implements alone one thousand dollars, twice as much in live stock, half as much in artificial ma- nures, and instead of putting the surplus profits in the bank, he at once re-invests them in the same way, until he gets the farm up to its highest limit in cultivation and machinery. A wag remarked that the prevalence of exaggeration among our au- thors, was owing to the enormous dimen- sions of our country, and we can more tru- ly say that the superficial character of bus.