RELATIONS OF SCIENCE TO AGRICULTURE. 23 



pulse ; to make the earth say beans instead of grass." This 

 struggle was complicated for our predecessors and for us by 

 the unsparing drafts which nature had to meet. 



No science can give back the past. That would be to 

 surrender the land to be the Indian's hunting-grounds again. 

 But it can and it must improve our agriculture by reviving 

 such of the old conditions as will put nature more in alliance 

 with the farmer's work. New England husbandry will never 

 be exactly the same as that of the rich plains behind the 

 dikes of Holland, or that whose leaves are dewy with the 

 warm vapors of an English sky. But it will be the hus- 

 bandry of a soil less sterile and more hospitable in just the 

 proportion that the farm goes to school to science, and learns 

 that even after years of neglect, nature may still be recovered 

 as a friend. A wise combination of intelligence, under the 

 direction of only what is certainly established by science 

 now, for the purpose of recovering some of the lost values 

 of the climate and growth, would make any district — even 

 your own, so proud of its advanced culture — vastly more 

 productive as well as beautiful. Economy would follow in 

 the track of wealth and grace. The age of labor-saving 

 machines would come to understand that the best of these 

 are natural influences themselves. 



You can see, ft-om the special turn I give this theme, that 

 I do not believe that the destiny of New England is to cede 

 the hands that guide the plough to manufacturers, and to 

 reckon, in another century, her agriculture as a lost art. I 

 love the joy of her country-side too much ; I honor too 

 profoundly her moral and political strength in her rural 

 communities, to think approvingly of such a change. I 

 prefer to look for an age when sweeter compensations of 

 rustic life shall surround the feverish excitement of our 

 cities ; when stronger attractions shall retain our youth upon 

 the soil ; when, amid richer acres and fairer homes, our 

 farmers, who have most of all given pledges to loyalty by 

 joining their fortunes to their mother earth, shall hold with 

 stronger hands the tradition of liberty ; but I only dare to 

 speak of this as possible through that wide culture in which 

 science bears its part. 



Again, I specify the help which science renders to the farmer 



