54. MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



We all subscribe to the truth of the lines of New England's 

 greatest poet, when he says, — 



" Give fools their gold, and knaves their power ! 

 Let fortune's bubbles rise and fall ; 

 Who sows a field, or trains a flower, 

 Or plants a tree, is more than all. 



. " For he who blesses most is blest. 



And God and man shaU own his worth, 

 Who toils to leave as his bequest 

 An added beauty to the earth." 



Had the principles of agricultural reform and improvements 

 been as well understood as the principles which govern our 

 mercantile interests, and been as well applied, our New Eng- 

 land farms would not present the barren spectacle which in 

 some instances we now behold. 



You cannot violate the laws of the soil any more than you 

 can the laws which govern your physical system. Similar 

 laws govern both. Nature will supply the demands of growth 

 according to her resources, and when exhausted, must receive 

 back the elements of which she has been robbed, or she re- 

 fuses longer to yield her wonted harvest. Science enjoins 

 upon agriculture the condition of a self-sustaining vitality. 

 Whatever is taken from the soil by the harvest must be re- 

 turned to it again, otherwise a great injury is inflicted, not 

 only upon the farmer, but upon the whole country. It has 

 been truly said, " To destroy the productiveness of the soil, 

 to squander the elements of that productiveness, is to destroy 

 the hopes of civilized humanity, and robs posterity of its 

 birthright to a career of progress." 



We are the agents in the employ of Nature to prosecute and 

 improve her interests ; and in order to do this understand- 

 ingly we must be fully acquainted with her workings. 



We must understand the action of light, heat, moisture and 

 the properties of vegetable growth ; how this plant-food is 

 formed, and how, and in what manner, the plant takes up and 

 appropriates that food to its own use ; the efiect of cropping 

 upon the soil, and the condition of the soil under any circum- 

 stances ; the cause of fertility ; the effects of ploughing, 

 underdraining, irrigation, &c. 



There is a love of nature instinct in every living soul. 



