THE EISE OF AGRICULTURE. 67 



To descend from generals to specials, and from greater 

 things to smaller, we cannot hope to thrive in agriculture 

 except by holding to the working method of our race ; we 

 must be scientific, having and eagerly seeking knowledge. 

 There are too many men who fall away from this method, and 

 prop themselves against one of the stupidest sayings ever 

 invented by an idler : "AVhat was good enough for my father, 

 is good enough for me." They are like those lake people we 

 were talking of, who thought that wheat, dried apples and a 

 bronze hatchet were sufficient for any family, and who, so far 

 as we know, never got beyond these simple supplies. 



You tumble against such folks at every turn ; and a deal 

 of hauling and pushing it takes to get them out of the way. 

 Last winter, a number of learned men asked the legislature 

 for an annual grant for making a proper survey of this Com- 

 monwealth. Our friends of the bronze period awoke at once 

 from their customary doze. " What, what, what 1 A survey ! 

 Have we not town, county and state maps already? Did our 

 fathers complain of them? No, no ! This is a device to pay 

 a parcel of scientists who want to wander over the earth with 

 muck-rakes!" So the petitioners had leave to withdraw. 

 As a fact, there is no such thing in existence as a map of 

 Massachusetts. There is a sheet of paper, painted with divers 

 colors, and covered with lines which mean roads, and with 

 dots which signify towns. But that is not a map ; it is rather 

 a perfecting of the shingle with chalk-marks wherewith the 

 countryman indicates to you the way to his father's wood-lot. 

 When we consider that, for every important problem of drain- 

 age, road-making, mining, manufacturing, water-supply and 

 agriculture, an exact topographical map is essential, the peti- 

 tioners would seem to have been in the right. There is no 

 country of Central Europe, however small and poor, that does 

 not possess a topographical survey. Our sister republic, 

 Switzerland, has a topographic map which is a model in its 

 Avay. She has mountains fourteen thousand feet high, whose 

 every crest and ravine is there minutely laid down ; while 

 we, with no hills that a child cannot climb, stay content 

 with our improved shingle and chalk-marks. All this comes 

 of want of knowledge or science. And thereby we are led 

 to ask. What is a scientific man, and how may we know him? 



