FARMING IN NEW ENGLAND. 32T 



FARMING IN NEAV ENGLAND. 



From an Address before the Worcester Society. 



BY "WILLIAM BKIGHAM, ESQ. 



On an occasion like this, it may not be unprofitable to con- 

 sider some of the more prominent sources of encouragement to 

 the New England farmer, and to inquire what he can do to im- 

 prove and adorn our own New England. I am aware that 

 there is a feeling quite too general among our ambitious and 

 enterprising young men, that farming is not the pursuit that 

 holds out the greatest promise of success, or if it is to be fol- 

 lowed, other lands and other skies are more propitious to it. 



If this be true, then we cannot hope to make much further 

 progress in the science or pratice of agriculture. We cannot 

 expect much further improvement of the hills and valleys, 

 which our ancestors cultivated and which are made dear to us 

 from having been associated with their virtues, labors and sac- 

 rifices. Our efforts must be directed to the maintenance of our 

 present position. Better perhaps would it be to avoid this lin- 

 gering but certain death, and let the forest again cover our 

 hills. 



Such a heresy as this can neither be maintained nor tolerated. 

 It has no foundation in fact and should be repudiated. Its 

 origin can be traced not to any true and reliable facts, but to 

 that tendency so general of believing that the way of success 

 and the means of success are in some distant land rather than 

 in our own, and in some occupation other than that which we 

 happen to follow. We hear of distant and fertile soils — of 

 abundant crops produced almost without labor — of herds of 

 cattle and sheep almost numberless grazing upon the green 

 pastures through the whole year, and we think our lot is a hard 

 one. But the whole story is not told — nothing is said about 



