promise that seed time and harvest shall never fail to supply the daily wants of his

children.

But with all the progress which we have made in improving the implements of the farm, we have not reached perfection. No bound is set to human ingenuity, and further means may yet be devised to shorten labor and increase the products of the soil.

We cannot hope, nor is it desirable, to avoid labor. This is not the object of improved machinery; but to make labor more attractive, agreeable, and productive; to bring into subjection the rude forces of nature, and make them do our bidding and increase our stores; to redeem thousands of acres now lying waste from wildness and desolation, and to make our country the granary of the world-these are triumphs we may hope to gain from the introduction and use of improved machinery, and in this view the subject commends itself to the attention of the highest intellect, and opens a field for the labors of the noblest philanthropy.

PROGRESS IN THE RAISING OF STOCK.

given to the raising of stock, it is not surprising to find the number of cattle in Virginia in 1620 amounting to about five hundred head; and in 1639, to thirty thousand; while from the fact that in 1648 the number had been reduced to twenty thousand, we may infer that the restrictions on killing them had been removed. Many also had been sent to New England.

The first cattle that were introduced into the Plymouth colony, and undoubtedly the earliest brought into New England, arrived at Plymouth, in the ship Charity, in 1624. They were imported by Governor Winslow for the colony, and consisted of three heifers and a bull. A division of the stock, which appears to have been held in common, was made in 1627, when one or two are described as black, black and white, others brindle; an evidence that there was no uniformity of color. These animals were to remain in the hands of individuals receiving them for ten years, they to have the produce, while the old stock was still to be owned by the colony in common. Twelve cows were sent to Cape Ann in 1626, and in 1629 thirty more, while in 1630 about a hundred animals were imported for the "governor and company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England." These cattle were kept at Salem.

In the meantime, the first importation was made into New York from Holland by the Dutch West India Company, and the foundation laid for a valuable race of animals. The number in all introduced was one hundred and three, consisting of horses and cattle for breeding. The company furnished each tenant with four cows, four horses, some sheep and pigs, for the term of six years, when the number of animals received was to be returned, their increase being left in the hands of each farmer. Then the cattle belonging to the company were distributed among those who were unable to buy stock.

Allusion has already been made, incidentally, to the character of the cattle from which the early importations into this country must, for the most part, have been drawn. The first animals that arrived in any part of the present territory of the United States were probably those taken to the colony on the James river, in Virginia, previous to the year 1609, the exact date of their arrival not being known. Several cows are known to have been carried there in 1610, and during the following year, 1611, no less than one hundred head arrived there from abroad. It is probable that those first introduced there were brought over by the earliest adventurers, and others came from the West Indies. It is well known that some of their cattle came from Ireland. Those from the West Indies were the descendants of cattle brought to America by Columbus in his second voyage, in 1493. I have seen it asserted that so important was it considered that the cattle introduced into the infant colony should be preserved and allowed to increase, that an order was issued forbidding the killing of domestic animals of any kind, on pain of death to the principal, burning of the hand and cropping the ears of the And then, in 1631, 1632, and 1633, sevaccessory, and a sound whipping of twenty-eral importations were made into what is four hours for the concealer of a knowledge now New Hampshire, by Captain John of the facts. Such encouragement being Mason, who, with Gorges, procured the

And so, for the settlements along the Delaware, cattle were introduced by the Swedish West India Company in 1627. It will be seen, therefore, that before the close of the year 1630, the number of horned cattle in all the colonies must have risen, by natural increase and by the importations above named, to several thousands.