74 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



and by skilful engineers, and men engaged in large commer- 

 cial enterprises, the results which they will reach will be as 

 marvellous and as satisfactor3\ There is no greater mistake 

 than to suppose that it requires only the most ordinary sort 

 of a man to be a former. That a man of little mental calibre 

 and less mental culture can work at farming, there is no 

 doubt. And so he can work at law, at medicine, and at 

 theology — but what a farmer ! what a lawyer ! what a doc- 

 tor ! what a theologian ! He can probabl}^ do as well in 

 one of these professions as in another. To be an intelligent 

 and successful farmer, and to be constantly improving, is 

 to know, or at least to desire to know, the laws of nature 

 as they are exemplified in the solid earth, and in the soil; 

 in the heat and in the cold ; in the rain and in the sunshine ; 

 in the seasons as they come and go in their ceaseless rounds ; 

 in the tender plant, and in the sturdy tree ; and to work in 

 harmony with the laws which have been established and 

 which are constantly upheld by the Divine Hand. 



