the spring, to speak the magic word, which shall call them into being.

I would apply these remarks to the husbandman, as well as to the mechanician, although, as you reminded us, sir, in your instructive discourse, from the earliest records of our race, the calling of the husbandman is coeval with man; and although the farmers, as a class, are said to be rather disposed to adhere to old ways. Yet, sir, I have no doubt that in the several departments of husbandry, in what relates to climate, soils, manures, animals, implements, seeds, roots, grains, and grasses, vast improvements are yet to be made;-improvements equal to what has been witnessed in any other branch of industry.

You will be surprised perhaps, sir, to hear me express the opinion that any improvement can be effected in reference to climate; that being a thing outside, beyond, above us; which we must take as kind Providence pleases to send it. But much can be done, sir, to modify the influence of climate. In the neighborhood of large towns, (and the railways are constantly enlarging this neighborhood,) a very great business is carried on in the way of raising fine fruit, - particularly grapes, and flowers under glass. I am afraid to repeat the estimates I have heard on this subject. It is an increasing business; and by the use of hot air, hot water, and steam, it will yet be carried a good deal further. I have not the least doubt that fuel enough is burned to waste annually, in every farmer's house in Middlesex county, to heat a conservatory, which, with careful culture, would furnish grapes in a single year enough to pay the outlay of the building.

Sir, the great subject of shelter, (which is the question of climate in another shape,) has not been enough considered. Whenever you cut down a large piece of woodland, you change the climate of the tract of land which was shielded by it from the prevailing winds. When you clothe the summit of a hill with a thriving plantation, you make a milder climate for the slope which is thus sheltered. I have seen tender shrubs killed by removing a building, which protected them from the north-east; and every one knows that delicate

fruits rarely fail to ripen in a thickly built city, which are very uncertain in the neighboring country. In short, sir, if any one doubts the extent to which climate consists in shelter, let him remark the difference between the north and the south side of a high compact wall, when the snow is going off in the spring. You will sometimes have a little glacier one side of the wall, and dandelions in blossom the other.

I saw the other day at Nahant, a very striking illustration of the effect of shelter, in producing a change of climate. On the highest part of that peninsula, a spot over which the north-west wind in winter comes charged with needles' points and razors' edges, and where in the spring the east wind distils from his dripping wings a chilly dampness, that carries a raw feeling to your very bones, I say, sir, on this spot, and on the northern slope of it, the perseverance and skill of an intelligent gentleman has created an entirely new climate. He has clothed the most elevated portion of the promontory with trees for shade. His cottage is hidden in a grove of his own planting, and that commenced (I think) less than twenty years ago. On the north-west slope of his

grounds, he has a garden filled with the choicest fruits of the season; not raised under glass, but in the open air and on standard trees. I saw there the most beautiful pears I have seen this season, with peaches, plums, and apples. Well, sir, this as I said has not been effected by glass, by furnaces, or by hot walls; but by shelter, and not much of that. Rough slats of wood, higher or lower, as required, some of them twelve or fifteen, others twenty or twenty-five feet high; nailed up an inch or two apart; these have produced the mighty effect and created the climate of Provence on the cliffs of Nahant. A solid fence would not stand the mighty power of a north-wester on this exposed spot; the thin slats a few inches apart, stand very well, and seem to answer the purpose as effectually.

Well, my friends, you will be ready to exclaim, “Oh, yes, this is a single case, a very special instance, in which, by a great outlay of money, a desired result has been produced

on a small scale." I have no doubt Mr. Frederic Tudor, (I trust he will pardon me for making free with his name,) has expended a good deal of money on his house and grounds, at Nahant, but it did not strike me that the fence of slats, the main instrument of effecting the change of climate, could have cost a great deal. I think any farmer, who lives near a saw-mill, could, for five dollars, buy slabs enough to do all that has been done by Mr. Tudor, in this respect.

And now, sir, having alluded to this gentleman's operations at Nahant, and the expense bestowed upon them, I will observe, that they furnish another striking illustration of what has been done, in the way of improvement, by intelligence and perseverance in our own day and neighborhood. The gold expended by this gentleman at Nahant, whether it is little or much, was originally derived, not from California, but from the ice of our own Fresh Pond. It is all Middlesex gold, every pennyweight of it. The sparkling surface of our beautiful ponds, restored by the kindly hand of nature as often as it is removed, has yielded and will continue to yield, ages after the wet diggings and the dry diggings of the Sacramento and the Feather Rivers are exhausted, a perpetual reward to the industry bestowed upon them. The sallow genius of the mine creates but once; when rifled by man, the glittering prize is gone for ever. Not so, with our pure crystal lakes. Them, with each returning winter, the austere but healthful spirit of the North,

with mace petrific, cold and dry,

As with a trident smites, and fixes firm
As Delos floating once.

This is a branch of Middlesex industry that we have a right to be proud of. I do not think we have yet done justice to it; and I look upon Mr. Tudor, the first person who took up this business, as a great public benefactor. He has carried comfort in its most inoffensive and salutary form, not only to the dairies and tables of our own community, but to those of other regions, throughout the tropics; yes, sir, to the

furthest East. If merit and benefits conferred gave power, it might be said of him, with more truth than of any prince or ruler living,

super et Garamantas et Indos

Proferet imperium.

I think, my friends, you will not be sorry in reference to this product of our own Middlesex, to hear a little anecdote of what once happened to myself. When I had the honor to represent the country at London, I was a little struck one day, at the royal drawing-room, to see the President of the Board of Control, (the board charged with the superintendence of the government of India,) approaching me with a stranger, at that time much talked of in London, the Babu Dwarkanauth Tagore. This person, who is not now living, was a Hindoo of great wealth, liberality, and intelligence. He was dressed with oriental magnificence; he had on a rich cashmere shawl, held together with a large diamond broach on his head, by way of turban, and another cashmere round his body. His countenance and manners were those of a highly intelligent and well-bred person, as he was. After the ceremony of introduction, he said he wished to make his acknowledgments to me, as the American Minister, for the benefits which my countrymen had conferred on his. I did not at first know what he referred to; I thought he might have in view the Mission Schools, knowing as I did, that he himself had done a great deal for education. He immediately said that he referred to the cargoes of ice sent from America to India, conducing not only to comfort but health; adding that numerous lives were saved every year by applying lumps of American ice to the head of the patient, in cases of high fever. He asked me if I knew from what part of America the ice came. Well, sir, it gave me great pleasure to tell him that I lived, when at home, within a very short distance of the spot from which it was brought. It was a most agreeable circumstance to hear, in this authentic way, that the sagacity and enterprise of my friend and neighbor had converted the pure waters of our lakes into the means,

not only of promoting health, but saving life at the antipodes. I must say, I almost envied Mr. Tudor the honest satisfaction which he could not but feel, in reflecting that he had been able to stretch out an arm of benevolence from the other side of the globe, by which he was every year raising up his fellow men from the verge of the grave. How few of all the foreigners who have entered India, from the time of Sesostris or Alexander the Great to the present day, can say as much! Others, at best, have gone to govern, too often to plunder and to slay. Our countryman has gone there, not to destroy life, but to save it;-to benefit them, while he reaps a well-earned harvest himself.

And thus having got you, my friends, to the banks of the Ganges, in my rambling discourse, I am going to bring you back to Middlesex,- to Lowell itself,- by a short cut; and furnish you, at the same time, another illustration of the progress of the arts you cultivate, and of that connection between the husbandman and the manufacturer, which was so ably set forth by the orator of the day. You are all aware that great quantities of coarse cottons used to be brought thirty years ago from India. It was an important branch of commerce; the advertising columns in our newspapers were filled with long lists of hard Hindoo names of goods imported from Calcutta, and now seldom heard of. Of the younger portion of this company, few, I suppose, have ever seen a piece of this India cotton, such as was formerly imported into the United States in great quantities. I will presently show you a specimen of it, bought and worn by me forty-four years ago;- but I must first tell you on what occasion, and for what purpose.

In the month of February, 1807, I was sent for a few months to the academy at Exeter. There was at that time among the pupils of the academy a military company, of which all the boys, who were emulous of serving their country in arms as well as arts, were members. I joined it, sir, and was tolerably successful as a soldier. I did not get to be a commission or even a warrant officer; but I rose in due time to be right hand man- or rather boy of the rear