430 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



the garden be rendered productive. A very large portion of the 

 stuff that life is made of, comes from this source. We have 

 seen to-day what every garden may produce. Let ns not only 

 admire, but imitate. It> is said that one of the ancient popes 

 pointed with pride to the cabbages he had raised. Would that 

 popes and kings had never had a meaner ambition ! Your com- 

 mittee suggest that it is no unworthy object of ambition to the 

 husbandman to have a good garden. Let our future improve- 

 ments in farming then, extend into horticulture as well as agri- 

 culture. 



And they would also say to the husbandman's ivife, that 

 American women notoriously suffer for want of free and vigor- 

 ous exercise in the open air. Why may we not assign to them 

 at least a partial care of the garden ? Their hands might possi- 

 bly lose somewhat of their accustomed Avhiteness and softness 

 if they were taught to handle the garden rake and hoe. But if 

 their hands were a little more brown, their cheeks would cer- 

 tainly have a little more 



" Rosy red, love's proper hue." 



Why then may they not, like their mother Eve, visit the garden 

 at sunrise, and pay a sisterly regard to the vegetables aild flow- 

 ers ? We never sec woman so employed without thinking of 



" Proserpine gath'ring flowers, 

 Herself a fairer flower ! " 



W. C. GoLDTHWAiT, Chairman. 



DOMESTIC MANUFACTURES. 



MIDDLESEX. 



From the Report of the Committee on Bread. 



The rise and progress of agricultural societies, and the stimu- 

 lus the inventive genius of the age has received by a wise and 

 judicious disposition of premiums, have caused mother earth to 

 bring forth many productions that would have been considered 

 monstrous phenomena by our ancestors of the last century. We 



