48 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



"THE FARMER, AS HE WAS, IS, AND 



IS TO BE." 



From an Address delivered before the Ilampden East Society, October 5, 1859. 



BY E. \Y. B. CANNING. 



Geologists tell us of a transition period in cosmogony, when 

 the primitive rocks of the world changed their form, and consti- 

 tuted a stratum between the amorphic mass beneath, and the 

 more perfect development forming the upper crust and surface 

 of our globe. The great back-bone of the earth having been 

 laid beneath the deep foundation of the hills, the ribs and skele- 

 ton limbs must next be positioned, preparatory to the clothing 

 of the whole with the beautiful covering constituting the super- 

 ficial world. Mcthinks the farmer of the present day occupies 

 this transition place in the development of agricultural science. 

 He has broken the trammels of antiquity ; the blind and erring 

 attachment to the past ; but has not reached the eminence his 

 children's children arc yet to attain. 



Greatly, in later years, has the prominent bump of construc- 

 tiveness in American craniology been tasked in aid of husbandry. 

 Almost every implement of the art has been perfected, and a 

 vast number invented, to assist or save manual labor. As 

 instances of the latter kind, may be named the various mowers 

 and reapers — the introductions of recent date, whereby whole 

 sections of grass and grain arc harvested with less time and 

 trouble than were, on the old method, as many acres. Not 

 content with these achievements, men are now perfecting a 

 steam-plough, and such a machine maybe in general use before 

 serial navigation is wholly successful. The cumbrous utensils 

 of the past are fast disappearing before the lighter and aptcr 

 contrivances which secure desirable results with a vastly less 

 outlay of time and strength. 



To the advent of such a day, I have no doubt, the rivalry of 

 such occasions as the present has largely contributed, and here 



