36 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



almost artistic finish, backed as it was with a long line of rngged 

 hills. The smoke of newly kindled fires was ascending in unbroken 

 column from the slender chimneys, betokening the approaching 

 supper hour. Indications of farm life were visible about the barns, 

 and in the neighboring fields, and lent a new charm to us who were 

 but recently in the heat, noise and confusion of city life. Farn>- 

 life and scenes were not unfamiliar to me then, but the lesson I 

 learned in those moments of contemplation will never be forgotten,, 

 for it did much in directing my thoughts to this subject of farm life- 

 in New England, which in turn have given place to years of actual 

 and practical experience, developing the unideal as well as the 

 artistic sides of the subject. 



If we examine the map of New England, we shall find that the 

 surface of the country is in general bold and rugged, allowing of 

 level and interval lands of limited extent only. This necessitates 

 the division of the countr}- into small holdings, and we find but few 

 of what would be called large f^vrras in other sections of our country. 

 The&e farms are generalh' so arranged as to include a little level or 

 valley land, arable hill lands, and some woodland, giving to each 

 owner a chance for a diversified farming, and a share of that which 

 is good. These farms are watered by the purest of hill and moun- 

 tain springs, and bright sparkling, dashing rills, untinctured by 

 unpleasant or injurious mineral elements, and possess a soil equal in 

 fertility to any similar sized portion of the United States. I speak 

 of the soil only, not the accompaniment of rocks and stones : they 

 are placed there to give character to the landscape, — and develop 

 that of the owner. I do not mean by this statement that the 65,000 

 square miles of New England territory will produce a crop equal to 

 65,000 square miles of deep prairie soil, but that where we have an 

 acre that we am cultivate, it will equal the average acre of any 

 other section. It possesses more mineral elements than the prairie 

 soils of the west, and for this reason will, in ray judgment, outlast 

 them. A fertile soil contains carbon, oxygen and hydrogen, these it 

 can obtain from air and water, and also a portion of its nitrogen ,^ 

 in the form of ammonia and nitric acid; but it must contain as a. 

 part of its constituents, phosphorus, potash, sulphur, soda, lime, 

 iron, magnesia and chlorine. The hills of New England are mostly 

 of granite ; so called because made up of little grains of three 

 minerals, quartz, felspar and mica. The quartz is almost pure silica^ 

 but the felspar and the mica are compound minerals, being com- 



