20 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



Third. The pursuit of agi"iculture tends to develop the 

 intellectual faculties. There is a notion current in the popu- 

 lar mind that a man who cannot succeed in any other pursuit 

 should be a farmer. But this is a sad mistake. There is no 

 pursuit that requires a fuller share of the elements of success. 

 The farmer must have practical intellect, accurate judgment, 

 and keen perception. Men of less practical ability may fol- 

 low some business that requires the same strokes every day 

 until it becomes a routine, and they follow it with as little 

 thought as the horse moves in the treadmill. But the farmer 

 is obliged to thiuk about his work every day and every hour. 

 His judgment must be good, for he must trade as well as 

 work, and a few poor trades are fatal to his success. He 

 must also be capable of laying plans for the future. It is a 

 common remark among farmers, "He was good to work, but 

 had little calculation, and failed to pay for his farm." 



Farming is most emphatically a mathematical business. No 

 man needs a scientific education more than the farmer. The 

 farmer must be what is termed a posted man. He must 

 understand the practical questions of the day, because there 

 is hardly a question of the times that does not affect the 

 market. He must have a keen foresight that he may be able 

 to decide whether dairying or wool-growing will be most 

 profitable for the next five years. The successful farmer must 

 be a man of the most unfaltering perseverance, for his money 

 is made slowly r.nd by careful, patient endeavor, year after 

 year. The hot blood and fever-pulse of ambition are of little 

 account to him. 



Let no one advise an enterprising and gifted young man to 

 go into some business above farming, for there is nothing 

 above farming. The work of the farmer educates the worker. 

 A striking example of this is found in the effect this pursuit 

 has upon our Irisii immigrants. They come here with spirits 

 crushed by ages of tyranny, bearing upon their brows the 

 impress of the iron heel of despotism. Yet a few years' resi- 

 dence upon our freer soil, under the influence of our free 

 institutions, develops some of the noblest specimens of man- 

 hood. But this is more apparent among those who select 

 farming as a pursuit, than among those who take some other 

 branch of employment. Notwithstanding the truth of all we 



