96 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



THE PRACTICAL FARMER 



From an Address before the Nantucket Agricultural Society, Oct. 28, 1856. 



BY C. L. FLINT. 



I congratulate you, Mr. President and gentlemen of Nan- 

 tucket, on the complete success of this the first exhilntion of 

 your agricultural society. If " well begun " is " half well done," 

 you may anticipate a success as glorious as this beginning is 

 auspicious. 



An occupation opening such vast liclds of experiment, so 

 wide a range of practical and scientific inquiry, and presenting 

 so many objects of interest as that in which we are engaged, 

 seems to invite, and should secure, for the promotion of its 

 interests, the highest efforts of human genius. For who can 

 imagine a grander employment than that of aiding the progress 

 of an art which seeks to devise the means of obtaining vegetable 

 and animal products for the support of man in the most perfect 

 and economical manner ? 



Modern times, in.deed, have witnessed the union, to some 

 extent, of scientific research and actual experiment in the field ; 

 and chemistry, botany, vegetable physiology, and especially 

 mechanics, have contribiited largely to the development of 

 improvements in farming ; but science still deals too much in 

 mere abstractions, and the practical man has not yet thrown ofl* 

 all his jealousies of scientific theories ; and it is rare that we 

 find even a moderate degree of p^ractical skill and scientific 

 knowledge combined in the same individual. 



Some men pass from the theory of farming to its practice, as 

 a hungry cow dashes into a clover field. You look with 

 astonishment at the enthusiasm with which they take hold of 

 farming, deluding themselves with the idea that to be a practi- 

 cal farmer, is the easiest thing in the world. , 



But what is it to be a practical farmer ? Is it merely to be 

 able to dig from morning till night, and then to sleep from night 



