32 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



seasons, the results of experiments, the career of agriculture, 

 are subjects of unbounded interest to all men. Who has ever 

 grown weary over the marvels of ancient granaries, or lost his 

 interest in the record of farming inscribed on the walls and 

 tablets of the oldest nations of the earth ': Who ean forget 

 that agriculture was the chief occupation of the chosen people 

 of God, from the day that their founder commenced life in the 

 service of Laban, to the destruction of their nationality in the 

 " land flowing witli milk and honey ?" Who has not dwelt 

 with admiration on the devotion of the Romans to the soil 

 which they conquered, and on that agricultural pride which 

 prompted them to name their most distinguished families from 

 the products of the earth — Fabii, Lentuli, Pisones ? Who has 

 not warmed with delight over the words: which Cicero puts into 

 the mouth of the aged Cato — " I come now to the pleasures of 

 husbandry, in which I take vast delight. They are not interrupted 

 by old age, and they seem to be pursuits in which a wise man's 

 life should be spent. The earth does not rebel against authority ; 

 it never gives back but with usury what it receives. The gains 

 of husbandry are not what exclusively commend it. I am 

 charmed with the nature and productive virtues of the soil. 

 Can those old men be called unhappy who delight in the culti- 

 vation of the soil ? In my opinion there can be no happier life, 

 not only because the tillage of the earth is salutary to all, but 

 from the pleasure it yields," — words full of fresh and healthy 

 delight to old and young ? Who does not read with amazement 

 of the agricultural wealth and enterprise of the Saracens and 

 Moors, who made Spain a garden in spite of all natural 

 obstacle- ': How interesting is the story of the dependence of 

 all nations upon the farming community, of the levies for fi 

 ing armies — of the great purveyance by which the kings and 

 courts of England were fed from the farm houses, on their 

 journeys through the kingdom. How filled with deeper interest 

 the first faint and feeble el of our fathers to raise their 



scanty crops on the sands of Plymouth, and on the rugged hill- 

 sides — cradling the infancy of a mighty nation in the maternal 

 Lap of agriculture. Could English literature be deprived of the 

 writings of Fitzherbert, whose Book of Husbandry is as fresh 

 now as when written more than three centuries ago — or of the 

 practical wisdom of Jethro Tull — or of the thoughts of Smith, 



