SECRETARY'S REPORT. 123 



required to avoid failure. He knows that to produce 

 cheaply, he must produce largely of the fewest possible arti- 

 cles. He cannot manufacture hoe-handles and shoe-pegs at 

 the same time. He brings all his forces and energy, all his 

 skill and capital to do one thing well, and to have, as the 

 end and object of his labor, but one article to sell. The same 

 policy should direct the farmer. He ought to cultivate his 

 farm with a view to having but one crop to sell, and all his 

 agricultural operations should be directed, as nearly as possi- 

 ble, to produce the largest and the best of its kind, and this 

 crop should be one for which there should be a convenient 

 market. But how is it in practice ? 



If a farmer has a dairy cow to sell, for example, or his 

 neighbor wishes to purchase, unless within a short drive of 

 Brighton or Cambridge, both poor markets for that class of stock, 

 they are obliged to seek a purchaser or seller among neigh- 

 bors, or wait the passing of some chance drover to take the 

 animal off, frequently at less than its real worth, or to sell 

 an animal he knows nothing of. There is no market where 

 such animals are gathered together on a given day, and which, 

 from this fact being known, brings a large number of pur- 

 chasers as well as sellers together ; from the uncertainty, 

 therefore, of finding a ready purchaser at a fair price, the 

 farmer feels no inducement to raise stock. So with root crops 

 — they are a bulky article, and most of them should be used 

 upon the farm and converted into money by feeding to cattle 

 and sheep ; the want of a good market for the latter tends to 

 neglect of their cultivation, to the great injury of agriculture. 



Nor is this all. We think it will be conceded that by 

 meeting often, once a month, or once a fortnight, persons from 

 a larger extent of territory, with various experiences and knowl- 

 edge of agricultural wants, and agricultural production, in 

 the sharp competition of traders, the following results will 

 ensue. 



Farmers will learn to adapt their cultivation to the market. 

 They will learn to cultivate that kind of merchantable product 

 for which their farm is best adapted. One man has a farm 

 with little or no pasture, suitable to large crops of hay, 

 grain or roots ; another has a farm hilly, rocky, difficult to 

 cultivate, better adapted to pasture. The product of these 



