FUTURE OF AGRICULTURE. 367 



having the soil too rich, than of having it too poor and light. 

 Another would find out that it did not exhaust the soil, as has 

 been supposed, but that all the fibrous part of the plant draws 

 its substance and support from the air and from water, and that 

 it is only the seed that draws upon the soil, and that only to a 

 very limited extent, which could be supplied with the utmost 

 ease, by feeding out the oil-cake to cattle, and returning it in 

 the shape of stable manure. Another would find a home mar- 

 ket which must now be supplied by importation from countries 

 which can raise it no better than we, at a cost of six or eight 

 millions of dollars annually. Establishments for the manufac- 

 ture of thread and coarse cloth from flax would be found at 

 Andover, Clinton, Willimantic and Webster. It would be evi- 

 dent that other similar establishments would soon start up in 

 different parts of the country. Another would look into the 

 uses and demands for the seed, its fattening properties for cattle, 

 the average amount per acre and the price, and find equal 

 encouragement there for cultivation. 



Another would examine the improved machinery lately intro- 

 duced, with facilities for the preparation and manufacture of 

 flax never before known, and would obtain information in re- 

 gard to flax cotton, and all the varieties of fabrics for which 

 flax is now required more extensively than ever. With the 

 lights which all these investigations would open, the club would 

 come to tlie important decision of the propriety of offering a 

 premium for this very crop by the Hampshire County Agricul- 

 tural Society. 



When the investigations connected with flax were concluded, 

 the properties and value of root crops might be taken up and 

 their peculiar adaptedness to the soil of your county would be 

 impressed on the attention of farmers. Their fattening proper- 

 ties would be investigated. That would lead to experiments by 

 one and another connected with the club, and experiments 

 would perhaps show that an animal might be fattened on swale 

 hay and turnips alone. Thus practical results of great value 

 to our farmers wbuld, from time to time, be arrived at, and 

 questions would be settled which have been long discussed to 

 no purpose, because men did not work together. 



The same may be said of farmers' institutes, by means of 

 which the highest intelligence of the country would be brought 



