110 BOAED OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan., 



only dignifies and exalts labor; it leads to all the forms of cultiva- 

 tion in household ways of living, and in literary tastes and enjoy- 

 ments. The newness of our country, the struggles with nature 

 which are incident to the life of new countries, have doubtless 

 kept our farmers hitherto from giving due attention to this phase 

 of farm labor, but I think the time is come when American far- 

 mers, New England farmers, Connecticut farmers, can no longer 

 use this excuse for unkempt, untidy, wasteful, careless, and inar- 

 tistic modes of farming. 



I am told that the best farming countries of Europe present a 

 great contrast in all these particulars to the greater portion of our 

 own. Travelers tell us of the enchanting views which burst upon 

 them as they descended into Italy from Switzerland or France. 

 One who has recently witnessed the scenes which he so graphically 

 describes says: "The vast fertile plains of Lombardy lie at the 

 foot of the Alps like one vast, well-kept, well-ordered garden — 

 not one foot of waste land — the wide fields of wheat intersected 

 at regular distances by rows of mulberry trees, which in turn are 

 connected by grape-vines, the whole forming a scene, not only of 

 matchless beauty, but presenting a specimen of skillful husbandry 

 and the closest economy of agriculture, such as almost no other 

 land can equal, where art and utility join hands, and where beauty 

 of landscape vies with richness and value of production." 



And all this is the work of a peasantry, the like of which 

 America nowhere presents. The farm laborers of New England, 

 Heaven be praised, are not peasants, but proprietors, tilling, in a 

 majority of cases, their own acres. Surely it is, then, our duty to 

 maintain in the highest degree, not only all the great virtues of 

 industry, honesty, frugality, and temperance, but to adorn and 

 beautify our work and our lives by the art which lightens labor, 

 adds to our wealth, and hfts our lives to higher and more spiritual 

 regions of thought and action. 



The Chairman. If any gentleman has any question he 

 would like to ask, Mr. Chamberlain would be very happy to 

 answer it. 



Question. I would like to ask if the report which the 

 gentleman has given us of the crop of potatoes is the highest 

 yield he has seen stated ? 



