420 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



tion, or that they will cease to be excited by the magnificent 

 results that occasionally attend mercantile adventures ; but I am ' 



none the less convinced that, taking all things together, and in 

 the long run, the intelligent cultivation of the soil offers a most 

 reasonable prospect of success, a sure path to competence if not > 



to wealth. 



3d. For this additional reason, the system of farming among ' 



lis is in a state of transition from the established routine of i 



practice to a better order, founded upon the diffusion of science \ 



and upon the greater employment of machinery. The sturdiest ' 



conservative must admit the increase of knowledge and its in- i 



creased application to agriculture. It diffuses itself slowly yet ! 



surely from the studious mind to the laboring multitude, suggest- 

 ing improvements in every department of the business. There ; 

 is an active spirit of research, of inquiry, of experiment. Sci- ' 

 ence, and especially the science of chemistry, is successfully I 

 applied to the analysis of soils, and the composition of manures. 

 Prejudices are conquered, doubts solved, light let in upon | 

 darkness, and the effect is seen in more thorough culture and j 

 in annually increasing crops. The process advances, and its ,; 

 blessings reach even those who set themselves defiantly against ' 

 it. i 



Machinery is destined to work an immense change in farm- j 



ing. The ingenuity of our mechanics is unbounded. Already 

 they have discovered valuable applications of great principles to 

 the facilitation of labor ; and there is every reason to believe 

 that the machines now in use will be simplified and furnished 

 at smaller cost, and employed with less expenditure of power, 

 and that others will be invented that shall shorten many pro- ' 



cesses and lighten the burden and enlarge the products of toil. 



On the prairies of the West mowing and reaping machines j 



are now indispensably, and owing to the high price of labor will 

 be brought into use here. This will compel a better cultivation 

 of the soil, its more thorough ploughing and pulverization and 

 rolling, which are great benefits in themselves, while they | 



render the use of machines easier. Add to these, corn-drop- j 



pers and shellers, seed-sowers, subsoil ploughs, horse-hoes, 

 improved harrows and rakes, threshers and winnowers, and ' 



perhaps one of these days steam threshers and ploughs, and we 



