108 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan., 



to a man who reported a yield of more than five hundred bushels, 

 of marketable quality. 



A farmers' club, not long ago, applied to me for some improved 

 varieties of corn, as a wealthy gentleman had offered a large cash 

 premium for the best acre grown by any member of the club. I 

 sent them half a dozen varieties from which to select, and the trial 

 began. There were several competitors, and the result was a 

 surprise to all. The minimum peld reported to the committee of 

 award was ninety bushels, while the maximum was one hundred 

 and seventeen and a half bushels, and the next below, one hundred 

 and thirteen and a half bushels. But better than the profit and 

 satisfaction which resulted from this new departure, was the 

 influence of such an example upon that entire farming community, 

 which will never again be satisfied with their former methods. I 

 am so fully convinced of the importance of a more thorough 

 system of cultivation upon nearly all our farms, that I am inclined 

 to believe it is to become the chief agency in lifting New England 

 agriculture to a higher plane, both of honor and profit. 



Mr. President, I have spoken of a few, and only a few, of the 

 topics which have presented themselves to my mind while consider- 

 ing the broad and vital subject of farm labor in New England, and 

 trying to treat it in a practical and common-sense way. Perhaps 

 I have already said enough, but there is one phase of farm labor 

 on which I will venture to add a few words. I mean farming as 

 an art. The word art, I am aware, is not often associated with 

 farming, but it is surely worth inquiry whether farming may not 

 and ought not to be made an art, and whether the farmer ought 

 not to work in the spirit of an artist. "We are perhaps apt to 

 think that art is reserved for only merely ornamental and iesthetic 

 purposes. But if this be so, has the farmer no need of the soft- 

 ening, cultivating influences which art can give ? If any one is 

 disposed to doubt the propriety of connecting the idea of farming 

 with the idea of art, let me remind him that Max Muller, the 

 great philologist, has derived the very word art, from the Latin 

 word which means to plow. He says: "As plowing was not only 

 one of the earliest kinds of labor, but also one of the most primi- 

 tive arts, I have no doubt that the Latin word ars, and our own 

 word art meant, originally, the art of all arts, first taught by the 

 goddess of all wisdom, the art of cultivating the land." 



The farmer, then, has an original right to regard his occupation 



