NEEDS OF NEW ENGLAND AGRICULTURE. 67 



which our progress is made is stimulated by the hope of profit. 

 The desire for wealth (much or little according to our ideas) 

 is a wholesome and laudable desire. It is this desire that 

 makes us work ; and it is our work that makes us, or that may 

 make us, great. 



Work, — real hard work, with head and hands and heart, — this 

 is the key to all success. Head work alone will not answer; 

 neither will hand work alone. The whole man must be thrown 

 into the fight — not recklessly and blindly, but with a well 

 considered judgment. We must understand that the reason 

 why men succeed as merchants or as manufacturers is, that 

 they take advantage of every circumstance that can be made 

 to favor them. They see where their competitors are weak, 

 and there they make themselves strong to outstrip them. 

 They know that it is only in excessive production, in the minut- 

 est economy, and in the utmost activity of exchange, that the 

 possibility of great success lies. Everything is done with a 

 tension that an eager desire for gain alone can give. The suc- 

 cessful man is bent on coining his success into gold, and all his 

 energies are harnessed to the ceaseless task, as they would not 

 be were he working with any other motive. The farmer, if he 

 would be successful, must imitate the successful men of other 

 occupations. Not only must he work with all his mind and 

 with all his strength, but he must work for the love of money, 

 and as only the love of money can make him work. 



Modern enterprise takes the form of a quest for material 

 prosperity. In the olden time its form was conquest and mil- 

 itary glory. Helpless nations were trodden under the feet of 

 the successful men of the Dark Ages. In our day and in our 

 land, it is not helpless nations but helpless individuals that must 

 fall. In manufactures the helpless men have become oper- 

 atives ; in trade they are broken-down clerks and porters ; in 

 agriculture they are the small, hand-to-mouth farmers, who 

 starve a few animals and a feeble crop on their thin soils, and 

 do odd days' work for their more prosperous neighbors. These 

 men — in whatever station of life they may be — are the poor 

 inefificients, who count for just so much as their labor is worth, 

 and nothing more. It is of little use to trouble ourselves 

 about them until they show the energy to wake up and help 

 themselves. 



