68 JVIASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



how fakmers ca]s" bipeoye their 

 prese:n^t co]s^ditio^. 



From an Address before the Hoosac Valley Agricultural Society. 



BY SAKBORN TEKNEY. 



Great as have been the improvements in farming and farm- 

 life during the last twenty years, perhaps it may with truth 

 be said that there is still no profession in which there is greater 

 room or greater need of improvement than in agriculture, and 

 in the condition of those engaged in this noble work. Born 

 and bred a former, and believing that formers are or may be 

 the true nobility of the earth, I make this statement, I trust, 

 free from that prejudice which perhaps I might have if my 

 whole active life had been spent within college- walls, or in 

 any profession widely separated from that of agriculture. 



But it is one thing for a man to say that there is need of 

 improvement in this profession or in that, and quite another 

 to point out how improvements may be made. 



Agricultural societies, agricultural fairs, magazines and 

 papers devoted to agricultural interests, carefully prepared 

 addresses by practical farmers, as well as addresses from 

 learned men in other professions, have done a vast deal to 

 elevate the grand old profession of agriculture and many of 

 those engaged in its pursuits. But it would be only foolish- 

 ness to shut our eyes to the fact that much remains to be 

 done ; that many improvements still remain to be made before 

 the farmer, the farmer's family and the farmer's fields and 

 crops, become what they ought to be, and w^hat, according to 

 every true consideration of the subject, they must be. Par- 

 don me, then, if in the brief half-hour before us I bring before 

 you a few things with which you are all familiar, and attempt 

 to use them to show how farmers can improve upon their 

 present condition. 



