358 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



with any individual in this community, because I do not know 

 one. To me you are all strangers, and for aught I know may 

 be all model farmers ; but I don't believe it. I believe there 

 are some owners of land in this region that ought to be in- 

 dicted for cruelty to animals ; not only their over- worked, half- 

 fed, miserable breed of cattle, but for cruelty to themselves. 

 They ought to be arraigned and tried at the bar of public 

 opinion, and sentenced to have a little common sense instilled 

 into their heads. 



Now I would recommend to you to reverse your order of 

 premiums. Give one each to the five worst farmers in the 

 county. Repeat this every year. Appoint a committee to ex- 

 amine and report, and see how long they could find men willing 

 to enjoy this unenviable distinction. Offer another prize to the 

 family that can show the most old coats and hats sticking out 

 of the window, and see how the trade in glass would improve 

 about this time of year. There are but few men who have 

 coiirage enough to be the poorest farmers in the town. Unless 

 a man is by nature a sloven, he will not be one in a neat neigh- 

 borhood. He can't afford it. Certainly not if you publish his 

 name. 



How is a man to know that anybody ever uses better tools 

 than he does himself? By coming to such an exhibition as 

 this, where he sees better ones, and begins to long to try them. 

 I am sorry he cannot see a better assortment. There are not 

 usually a dozen men in a county bold enough to buy a new 

 plough until they know it has been tried, and that it will prove 

 all right. It is a bold deed to introduce a new plough, or in fact 

 any new farming tool, or new mode of farming. What would 

 some of you say to a tenant or hired man, whom you should 

 find some day with a plough and two yoke of oxen, ripping 

 through your meadow, or old pasture sod ? If you never before 

 had seen the operation, you would be very likely to fret a little, 

 at what you supposed would spoil the land. Yet next to turn- 

 ing a sod over, the very best thing that can be done to improve 

 a turf-bound meadow, is to go through it with one of the latest 

 improved subsoil ploughs, eighteen inches deep. And next to a 

 good coat of manure, and upon some land still better, is the 

 effect of a subsoil plough run in the bottom of every furrow in a 

 ploughed field. It is not a very serious undertaking, if you use 



