We have been farmers and inured to all the different kinds of labor thereunto appertaining. We have in early life ploughed with wooden ploughs, to which a wrought share and coulter were fastened, sowed all our grain by hand, harrowed the ground with square iron teeth harrows, cut all our grain with scythe and cradle, threshed all our grain with hand flails, mowed all our grass with scythes, and raked our hay together with hand rakes, and commenced tillage when the soil of our river lands was reduced to its lowest state of nutrition since the time their cultivation was first commenced. In progressing from the beginning of our business transactions, we became ploughers with patent ploughs, constructed of wood and iron castings, on which many improvements were, from time to time, made and have passed through the time of the introduction of different kinds of cultivators to cultivate ploughed ground, and of sowing machines, reaping machines, threshing machines of different kinds, and different kinds of horse power to impel the same, mowing machines to cut grass, and different kinds of horse rakes to gather hay, and different kinds of corn shellers, cutting benches, churning machines, &c., &c. We have observed a slow improvement of the lands in this town, which commenced about the year 1810, and progressed very slow at first, but increased in rapidity until the present time, 1858, and lands in this town now produce about double what they did in their lowest state of cultivation. We have seen the time when society here was in the lowest and most degraded state in which it has ever been in this valley, and have seen its rise and progress from that state to its present good and moral behavior. Now all these works, which are of inestimable benefit, are only a small part of the discoveries and improvements made by our countrymen in our time of life. We do not claim to have stood alone as observers, not that other countries have been idlers in respect to inventions and improvements, but that all our contemporaries, both in our own and other countries, have passed through a period of time which has produced greater and more wonderful discoveries than that of any other like term of years. Our travel on this great highway of research is yet rapidly advancing, and to what extent men will arrive is best known to the Great Architect who fills the universe with his works.