28 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



overcome, for we have every inducement to be patient, indus- 

 trious, and intelligent in our calling.. Let every farmer in this 

 county resolve that he will farm well, that he will faithfully 

 discharge his duty to the land intrusted to his care, and your 

 agriculture may surpass, in all its economy and proportionate 

 results, in its actual prosperity and in its general beneficence, 

 the agriculture of the old world, as far as the enterprise of a 

 well educated and busy community, outweighs in magnitude 

 and importance any effort of which a single individual, under 

 auy circumstances, is capable. For the accomplishment of this, 

 I would urge upon you an early and well ordered system of 

 agricultural education. 



But does some veteran among you, whose locks have whitened 

 in the seasons of his three score years and ten, and whose 

 muscles have become rigid under long continued toil, remind me 

 that the weariness of labor prevents the cultivation of the mind ? 

 Let me tell him, with profound respect for his years, and for 

 the honest and industrious life which he has led, that one great 

 blessing of the culture which I am urging is, that it lightens 

 the load of toil, and directs labor in easy paths. tiHad he appre- 

 ciated this in early life, and prepared himself for his business 

 by studying the thoughts and experience of others, would he 

 not have avoided many an hour of ill directed labor, and long 

 ago have felt how unerringly a cultivated mind guides man's 

 hands. Suppose he had entered upon his farm with something 

 more than his youthful observation and the experience of his 

 father to guide him, trained perhaps in a school of agriculture, 

 where the principles of the great art were instilled into his 

 mind, would not the leisure hours of his life have been multiplied, 

 would not his labor have been more effectual, would not his 

 fields have been more fruitful, would not his days have been 

 brighter ? A cultivated mind creates its own opportunity, and 

 is watchful of every passing hour, ingenious in making a 

 moment of leisure for its.own purposes. For the farmer, there 

 is tin; noontide hour, the quiet evening, the withdrawal from 

 his fields compelled by storms and winter, in which he may 

 store his mind with that knowledge which will make him more 

 efficientwhen he returns to his work. No laborious occupation 

 dem or its proper accomplishment more mental culture 



than firming, and none furnishes better opportunities for 



