262 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan., 



a successful small farmer does not imply the ability to speak intel- 

 ligently for the myriads of small farmers who have failed all over 

 the world, or even for the failures in our own nation, State or 

 town. The fat gosling is a cheerful fact which we all recognize, 

 but we do not expect the fattest one to give a theory or philoso- 

 phy of our lean poultry. The old orders were to bring in tramps 

 from the highway to our feasts of reason and flowages of soul, and 

 I would as lief show failures as successes in my attempts to mark 

 the channel of progress in small farming. 



One evening gives us little time for anything but the briefest 

 hints and suggestions concerning the " luck and chance " that sur- 

 round us in the broad ocean of daily hfe. 



The unwritten pedigree of the peasant farmer is as long as that 

 of the prince, and may be longer unless the family of the latter 

 goes back to the cooling affairs of the ground to rest and vegetate, 

 when their heads begin to ache with the cares of State. 



Farmers understand the order of growth in corn or grass; how 

 the seed, with and without man's intervention, falls to the ground 

 and continually flourishes in lasting life. But they are rather 

 slow to see how development works upon civilized man by a sort 

 of banyan arrangement. That noted sample of Asiatic vegetable 

 wisdom shoots upward from the ground with a noble impulse, but 

 the lofty tree appears to know, by a sort of botanic instinct, when 

 the wind blows too hard, when the air becomes too thin, when 

 every thing becomes ^^too too." altogether, for its health, in those 

 extreme altitudes, and turns humbly towards the earth agaih. 



We have numerous plants of our own which illustrate this sav- 

 ing law of nature. The squash-vine can be stimulated by an 

 artificial environment of forcing culture into an extraordinary and 

 wasteful growth. So can the strawberry. But wise gardeners 

 have sharp remedies for over-luxuriance. When neither drought 

 nor frost nor blight intervene to stop it they nip the sap of roots 

 or tops and bury buds and joints in the soil. 



We who are not blind to the fact that over-refined people may 

 become "too utterly utter" in their minds and bodies for any 

 earthly use, will be devoutly thankful when some fortunate chance 

 packs the homesick family comfortably off to grass in the country. 

 We owe the best civilization of New England to that saving 

 banyan instinct in highly cultivated races, which transplants itself 

 from the crowd to find room to grow. 



