120 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



THE POSSIBILITY OF IMPROVEMENT. 



Now, are these features of which I have spoken a necessity 

 in the life of the farmer? ]\Iay it not, without the sacrifice 

 of any thing else that is really worth keeping, take on more 

 of the graces? Is it not possible to break through these 

 limitations, stern as tliey are, and to secure for the farmer an 

 intellectual and social life in some degree commensurate with 

 his other advantages? It doubtless is possible, for it has 

 been done. It surely does not become tlie farmers of South- 

 ern Berkshire to despair of the possibility of higher intel- 

 lectual life on the farm, with the "apple-blossoms" of poetry 

 descending upon them so thickly from the summit of Mount 

 Washington. Is it not a fact worthy our study, this blending 

 of the finest potatoes with the finest poetry in the jn'oducts 

 of " Sky Farm " ? Nor is the instance altogether excep- 

 tional. Scattered here and there through the land, we may 

 find many a farmer's household marked by a similarly genial 

 intellectual life. There is great encouragement, alt>o, in the 

 general progress made of late years, and now making. I have 

 not intended in the sombre picture that I have drawn by 

 any means to ignore the fact of improvement. Indeed, in 

 coming back recently to some contact with agricultural life, 

 after twenty-five years of almost entire separation from it, I 

 have been greatly impressed with the |)rogress made in that 

 interval. A parishioner of mine is in Holland for the third 

 time within two years for the purchase of Ilolstein cattle for 

 himself and neighbors. Twenty-five years ago, a thorough- 

 bred cow or bull was as rare a sight, almost, as a Bengal tiger 

 or an Australian kangaroo. In the discussions of the Lee 

 Farmers' Club, which I occasionally attend, I have thought 

 sometimes I should have to interpose my ministerial authori- 

 ty to keep the peace between the advocates of Ayrshires or 

 Holsteins on one side, and of Durhams or Jerseys on the 

 other, so fierce has been the war of words. And so with the 

 use of machinerv, and the amelioration of the farm-labors 

 that comes in consequence, I think I am not mistaken, too, in 

 my impression of a decided improvement in the general life 

 of the farm, both in doors and uut, since the time when, as a 

 boy, it was my task to i)ick stones and mow ])ushes on one of 

 the roughest farms of Eastern Hampshire. The possibility 



