CHANGES IN FARMING. 



335 



which properly used, is power; progress towards mental eleva- 

 tion, and toward relief from exhausting toil. Labor is desirable, 

 as well as honorable, for man is so constituted that he can neither 

 secure the highest enjoyment nor the greatest usefulness without 

 full and fitting occupation for both body and mind. It is no curse 

 to earn one's bread in the sweat of the brow, by healthful, pro- 

 ductive labor ; — ratber is it an inestimable privilege and blessing. 

 It is only the toil which is so protracted and severe as to weary 

 the mind and unfit it for active exercise and healthy development 

 to higher uses, which is a curse. 



Thpre is progress towards means and methods of fertilization, 

 and thus, toward better farm practice which must assist in restor- 

 ing a higher fertility to large breadths of land from which, in years 

 gone by, we have taken too much, or have restored too little. 



There is remarkable progress towards economy of force.. Wit- 

 ness the improved implements of to-day and contrast them with 

 those of twenty or fifty years ago. How much more easily is 

 the hay crop secured with the help of mower and tedder and rake 

 and fork all moved by brute power, than when the hand scythe 

 the hand rake and hand pitchfork alone aided human muscles I 

 And how great also is the saving: of value in the crop as a conse- 

 quence of the ability thus furnished to have the work, done just 

 when it needs to be done ! 



Viewed from this standpoint there is a great deal which is 

 encouraging in what we see of agriculture in Maine ; and, were 

 there no other side — no other considerations to be taken into 

 account — we might possibly be content to have it go along at a 

 similar rate in time to come. 



But there are other sides to the picture, and some which pre- 

 sent, on the surface, at least, a less flattering aspect. We see 

 our larger towns and cities increasing in wealth and population, 

 while at the same time, the rural districts are diminishing in 

 numbers, and their wealth, if not diminishing, does not keep 

 equal pace. With all the advantages which agriculture now 

 possesses which it did not formerly enjoy we see no rush into it. 

 These advantages — and they are both real and great — have not 

 succeeded in making the pursuit popular and attractive. Young 

 men — sons of farmers, brought up on the farm, and familiar with 

 its labors and its profits, in large numbers, prefer to leave the old 

 home— and not to make a new one like it, but to engage in other 

 pursuits ; and of those actually engaged upon farms, not only in 



