354 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE 



facts as they daily occur. If you find it a difficult task to post 

 every entry to the proper account, and to produce a fair balance 

 sheet at the end of the year, accept the lesson which such an 

 experience is calculated to teach, namely, that our farming is too 

 much mixed farming, and that after being simplified as much as 

 possible, it will be still quite as complicated as any one man 

 should attempt. 



To sum up with brief conclusion, I would say, that of afl the 

 changes needed in the agriculture of Maine none is more impera- 

 tive than the introduction of busi7iess principles into its practice. By 

 conducting it in this way, at the same time bringing to bear upon 

 it an equal degree of zeal, energy and intelligence as men in other 

 pursuits bestow upon their business, a revolution would be effected 

 and a most beneficial one. 



L t this be done and it would quickly appear, and a conviction 

 of the fact would force itself upon everyone, that poor farming 

 does not pay, no branch of it, nor anywhere, neither poor nor 

 middling crops pay, neither poor nor middling animals pay, poor 

 or middling feeding and treatment of crops or animals won't pay. 

 It is only the well fed and well treated animals which pay, and 

 these pay well, in an average of years. It is the abundant, crops 

 and the superior products — whatever they be — which alone yield 

 good profits. Such an introduction would lead to earnest study 

 regarding the best rotations, the best and cheapest methods of 

 creating and sustaining a higher fertility in lands — whether under 

 the plow or in grass, — to improving the hereditary characteristics 

 of domestic animals, and to the most profitable methods of feeding 

 and treatment. It would lead to a conviction that our children 

 require, in order to be good farmers, more and higher and better 

 education, and more special training for this profession than we 

 ourselves had the means of obtaining. It will lead to division of 

 labor, and to associated effort, so far as these can be brought to 

 bear in aid of this pursuit. It will lead to a freer use of capital 

 in farming, both for permanent improvements and for floating use. 

 It will lead to a firm faith in good farming as both a safe and 

 remunerative occupation. 



Friend Taylor. I have been much interested in what my frieud 

 Goodale has said, but he came so near to finishing up the subject 

 as to leave but little for others to say. I am an old man, — more 

 than seventy-five years of age, and my principal business has been 



