18 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



graced the table and allayed the animosity of the notorious 

 Jack Sprat t and his honored wife, these had no fat at all. Fleet 

 of foot were they as grey hounds ; their self-sharpening shares, 

 with which they did divers large and small jobs of ploughing 

 about the doors of their owners, rivaling in length and excelling 

 in durability the latest patent of Nourse <fc Mason. 



Of fruit 1 will say but a word, though tempted to do so by the 

 luscious display on the tables. I have serious doubts about the 

 success of many of the foreign varieties introduced, and am 

 very well convinced that the process of hybridization will prove 

 to a great extent a failure. The varieties produced are not 

 hardy, and soon run out. I advise you to cultivate our native 

 varieties, and I am very desirous that our native wild grapes 

 should be domesticated, and a fair trial made of what cultivation 

 will do for them. It would be but little trouble, and might, I 

 believe would, be successful, as the specimens exhibited abun- 

 dantly prove. Our foreign and southern grapes arc too tender, 

 they will not bear our climate. We must have more hardy 

 varieties, unless some of these can be acclimated. 



A sad blight seems to have fallen upon the peach trees in 

 many parts of New England. Some towns arc now almost 

 entirely destitute of that fruit. It would be well to inquire 

 what varieties are most hardy, arc less exposed to disease, and 

 cultivate them. This can be done by farmers' clubs in different 

 towns, exchanging their experience and observation with each 

 other, and thus accumulating facts till the best kinds can be 

 selected, and the best culture devised. 



I do not intend by all these suggestions to imply that under 

 the best culture, and with the best aid of modern science, crops 

 will always bo insured. The sunshine and the rain, the snow 

 and the cold, are elements over which man has no direct con- 

 trol, and yet are most efficient agents in the growth and matu- 

 rity of crops. God so governs the world as to cause all who 

 will look intelligently upon nature's processes, to see his hand, 

 and feel tlieir dependence upon powers over which they have 

 no direct control. I do not say either that farmers will be 

 necessarily the most moral class in the community ; but I do 

 say that their temptations arc fewest, their opportunities best; 

 I do say that for security, comfort, serenity, success, I know of 

 no occupation better than that first appointed to man, tilling 



