102 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan., 



that there was only ninety cents of value in a ton, which had been 

 selling at fifty dollars. I venture the prediction that the Connecti- 

 cut Experiment Station will soon become to us what the German 

 Experiment Station is to Germany, the desideratum in all our 

 purchases of fertilizers and feed. 



But all these are only helps, and we must still depend much 

 upon ourselves for the successful management of our farms. Let 

 me not be misunderstood in my use of the term " success," for it 

 has a broader significance in agriculture than the mere converting 

 of labor and the elements of the soil into cash. There is a true 

 and a false success, and sometimes the one is mistaken for the 

 other. He who denies himself and his family the fullest enjoy- 

 ment of the comforts, and, so far as a prudent use of his means 

 will allow, of the luxuries of New England farm life, that he may 

 amass wealth in bonds and stocks, may be, after all, the veriest 

 spendthrift; for he has wasted time, and labor, and home delights 

 to gain the poorest and raeanest reward of human ambition. I 

 count no man truly successful who has nothing better than bags of 

 gold to show for his life of toil. He wins true success who makes 

 human happiness spring up about him like the grass in his 

 meadows, and converts his labor and skill into education for his 

 children, refinement for his home, and joy for all about him, and 

 has still a surplus capital for future days of need. And no ideal 

 which falls below this is worthy of the New England farmer. He 

 may and must emulate the sturdy but healthful economy of our 

 fathers, which decreed that there must be no expenditures beyond 

 the real necessities of the household, and asked for credit only 

 when some sure source of equal income was distinctly in view. 

 He must plan his farming with a keen eye to profit, both in his 

 outlay of labor and material and in his selection of crops to be 

 grown. He must act independently, not rejecting this because it 

 is old, or adopting that because it is new. 



There is a good deal of conservatism in agriculture that is blind 

 and unreasoning, and there is also a radicalism which runs mto all 

 sorts of extravagance, both in theory and practice. I confess to 

 very little veneration for anything simply because it is hoary, but 

 I believe that in agriculture we may well take counsel of the past 

 in many things. With respect to methods of culture, we cannot 

 afford to adopt the old ones, but with reference to means to be 

 employed we cannot afford to discard them as a whole. Let me 



