52 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



thriftless farmer; and the same may be said of cheap, unsuc- 

 cessful doctors, ministers, and artisans. 



It is a mistake to assume- that all soil-cultivators can be 

 successful in the calling : they cannot be any more than 

 every one can be successful in other occupations, and we 

 know there are miserable failures all about us. It is a settled 

 maxim that the new agriculture rests upon brains, upon 

 intelligence, upon culture. 



What may be called the minor points in practical agricul- 

 ture which I regard as settled are very numerous, and yet 

 hardly one of them rests easy in its place. No one ought 

 to dispute that it is advantageous under all circumstances to 

 raise the very best products of every kind which the earth is 

 capable of producing. It is the best butter, the best cheese, 

 the best fruits, the best flour, the best hay, that sells the 

 quickest, and brings the best prices. A poor product gives 

 no proper remuneration to the producer, or satisfaction to the 

 consumer. It is the farmer's business to learn how to raise 

 the choicest products as well as to learn how to secure the 

 largest results ; and it is the special mission of the new agri- 

 culture to furnish information upon these points. 



In the manufacture of butter, for example, it teaches, that, 

 in order to reach the highest degree of perfection, not only 

 must the best breed of cows be kept, but temperatures must 

 be observed carefully in all the stages of the mani]3ulating 

 process ; the thermometer must be used ; and, further, the 

 utmost cleanliness is indispensable to success. Common 

 butter can be made in the old, common way, — without ice in 

 summer, without convenient, cool, dairy-rooms, without work* 

 ing-implements, without care in excluding it from offensive 

 odors ; and it may be salted without weighing or measuiing 

 the salt. High grade or gilt-edged butter will at all times 

 command from forty to eighty cents per pound ; common, 

 from seventeen to twenty-five cents. Is it not wise to strive 

 to produce butter of the highest quality ? Apples and other 

 fruits may be grown on impoverished or overburdened trees, 

 and, when gathered, thrown carelessly into barrels, and sent 

 to market. The price for such fruits is always low. Apples 

 well grown, well selected, and well picked, will sell well, 

 even in years like the present, when the crop is over abun- 

 dant.. The wise and enterprising manufacturer labors to 



