68 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



botanical and common names, with their nutritive and produc- 

 tive vahies. Very few or none of the farmers of the county 

 have made the grasses a study. They know too little of their 

 natures and relative values. Some species are not recognized 

 by the same name in different parts of the county ; some spe- 

 cies are not distinguished from other species when they are 

 distinct in their nature and values. And I fear there are some 

 farmers among us who have learned so little of the alphabet of 

 farming, that they will be troubled to give you the common 

 name, even of more than three or four of the most common 

 kinds of grasses. They could learn them in your cabinet. 

 Potatoes of the various kinds ; onions, turnips, apples, peaches, 

 pears, every thing that the farmer raises, should be there, with 

 their names, weights and productive power recorded. To these 

 might be added specimens of rocks and soils. It should be a 

 cabinet to be studied — not a cabinet of curiosities. Monstrous 

 growths, which excite newsp{t]Der paragraphs, give little instruc- 

 tion. It is the normal plant in a well developed condition, 

 whose like you may hope to produce, that you should study. 



But I will not elaborate the idea further. The intelligent 

 will see, without my illustrations, that an agricultural cabinet 

 will be greatly useful to such students as every agricultural 

 freeholder should be. 



