NEEDS OP NEW ENGLAND AGRICULTURE. 73 



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loss, — loss that entails discouragement and so takes away the 

 self-reliant and hopeful condition that makes his task easy and 

 effective. Necessary losses hurt no one ; but losses that are 

 born of neglect or folly, inevitably bring self-reproach and 

 discouragement. 



Let us, therefore, be cautious how we proeeed for ourselves, 

 and cautious how we influence others ; but let us give our best 

 efforts to the solution of the practical question : In what way 

 are we to secure, with the most certainty and the least delay, 

 the improvement of our condition as New England farmers ? 



The less we look abroad for help the better. The miracle 

 that is to raise us is the miracle of combined personal effort. 

 No man's single work will count for much, but the work of all 

 shall amaze us by its effect. There is in every town at least 

 one man who feels within him the inspiration of the improve- 

 ment, who knows that New England agriculture is only feeling 

 the feeblest dawn of its triumphant day, whose heart longs for 

 its great and beneficent possibilities, and who only needs the 

 encouragement of kindred feeling to make him just such a 

 laborer as the vineyard needs. In every county there are 

 many such. In every State there are multitudes. If we can 

 urge these men's efforts into the same channel, they will wash 

 away the barriers that the good-old-way men have built, and 

 will spread their influence over the whole broad land, fertilizing 

 as it flows, and making our hills and valleys to blossom with 

 the flowers of a perfect agriculture, — peace and intelligence 

 and plenty. Let us make among ourselves a brotherhood of 

 " high farmers," and try, by our modesty and by our success, 

 to overcome the greatest obstacle to the improvement of our 

 agriculture, — that is, the opposition of the farmers themselves. 



It is a shameful thing to say, but the one cloud that is never 

 lifted from the path of an improving farmer, that is rarely 

 pierced by a ray of hope or encouragement, is the mean jeal- 

 ousy and suspicion — almost the hatred — of his neighbors. The 

 men who have nothing to lose and everything to gain from his 

 course, will, if he is a sensitive man, make his life a burden to 

 him, or drive him back into the ruts their own wheels have 

 trundled so long. It has been my fortune to be a farmer in 

 three different localities. In each, I have made it a rule to do 

 what seemed best, without regard to the opinion of other people. 

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