58 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



Educated labor not only pays the manufacturer and the ship 

 owner, but it pays the farmer also. 



There is a tract in the town of Wilbraham on which the 

 farmers of the last generation could not obtain a living, though 

 they seemed willing to live poorly. They did not even raise 

 the rye which they ate. This they obtained by going to other 

 parts of the town, reaping rye by the day, and taking their 

 pay in the grain which they reaped. Now that tract is occu- 

 pied by some of the wealthiest farmers in the town, and they 

 have made their money from the soil which they occupy. That 

 soil noio grows rije — and it grows any thing else that grows in 

 the town. I need not tell you that the present occupants of 

 that tract of country have been active members of your society 

 from its commencement. I am informed that twenty-five years 

 ago, two-thirds of the farms of Ludlow did not pay the current 

 expenses of their occupants, and their expenses then were not 

 so great as the current expenses of the occupants now ; but 

 instead of the heavy mortgages that then existed, now there is 

 money to let. What is the cause of the change ? Cause, sirs, 

 there is cause enough. Beside the temperance reformation, to 

 which, no doubt, they owe something, a flood of light and 

 knowledge has been poured in upon them from the agricultural 

 press and from agricultural fairs. And if any are there who 

 do not take the papers, and who do not attend the fairs, still, 

 the light from their neighbors' farms has shone in upon them, 

 and dispelled the darkness in which they would willingly grope. 



Enough has been done to show that agricultural education is 

 profitable. But is it perfect ? Have the farmers in Springfield, 

 and Longmeadow, and Westfield, got their farms into the most 

 profitable condition ? Nay ; very few farmers will assert they 

 even know how to do so. The science of farming at present, 

 consists of a mass of heterogeneous and disjointed facts. 

 What is known must be arranged into system before it can be 

 greatly available, and through that system the unknown will 

 be brought to light and become known. Li this age of learn- 

 ing, every trade has become a profession. No man can hope 

 for success, unless he understand the science of his business. 

 He may shovel and hoe, and perform other labor of mere brute 

 force, but he cannot manage a farm to profit, unless he under- 

 stand the reason of things. To do this, he must be as well 



