70 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



vellous world without finding it at every step and on every 

 side. But our present business is with the more practical side 

 of the case. We want to know what can be done to keep our 

 young men on the farm ; to keep Eastern men from emigrating 

 to the "West, and to give to all enterprising' farmers an incentive 

 for more thorough and more successful work. 



We desire to accomplish a practical result ; we must adopt 

 practical means. We want to keep our young men in the 

 profession to which they are born ; we must give them as strong 

 an incentive to stay as the world gives them to go. If we can 

 show them that in money or money's worth, for every dollar 

 they could make in a factory (after deducting insurance against 

 risks) they could make a dollar on the farm, and that they can 

 make it with as little personal sacrifice, they will no more think 

 of leaving the soil than they will think of leaving earth. If 

 our son thinks he is sure of an income of $5,000 a year if he 

 studies law and devotes the best of his life and energies to the 

 skilful practice of the profession, let us show him that the same 

 study, and time, and skill and energy will secure for him, in 

 comfortable and luxurious living, the full equivalent of his 

 professional income, and we may rest assured that we have 

 nailed that boy to the farm to the end of his days. 



Do you ask how we are to show him this ? We must point 

 to instances, — which we need not go far to find, — where intelli- 

 gent and energetic men are actually accomplishing such results, 

 and are making more than comfortable living from their farms. 

 Or, better still, let us show it to him in our own lives and our 

 own business. Let us put a little more energy, a good deal 

 more thought, and a good deal more capital into our farming. 

 Let us sell a little bank stock and use the money to make our 

 farming more worthy of us. Or, even better yet, let us send 

 him away to live a year with the best farmer we can hear of, 

 and give him to understand that when he comes home again, 

 with his mind made up to become a good farmer in sober ear- 

 nest, he shall lack nothing that our means or our encouragement 

 can supply, to start him on his way. And then, when the time 

 does come, let us be men about it, and really try to make him 

 happy and hopeful in his new pursuit, avoiding especially the 

 most common fault of fathers — jealousy of their sons' move- 

 ments. Let us slacken the restraint in which we have kept 



