102 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



board to eat my surplus hay, I bought, in December, a few far- 

 row cows and fatted them, selling them, after feeding from two 

 to three months, at an advance sufficient to pay for all the hay 

 and meal consumed. 



Some plan of this kind must, I think, be adopted by many 

 of us to keep up the fertility of our soil. If we can 

 devise some system that will enable us to feed to advan- 

 tage more than we raise, we shall succeed in greatly increasing 

 the value of our fields and pastures, of which we have ample 

 assurance, in the results obtained by the farmers of England, 

 who have increased the average yield of wheat twenty bushels 

 per acre by this process during the last few years. 



Another requisite for the attainment of success is a strong 

 faith. A farmer of all men is most dependent on nature for 

 his bread, and he should manifest in his life the belief that 

 u seed time and harvest shall not fail." We often hear men 

 expressing the opinion in some rainy time that the seed will 

 rot in the ground ; and again, when summer comes, that every- 

 thing will dry up in the heat. Now we should be above all 

 this, knowing from the experience of the past that an impor- 

 tant crop is seldom cut off by any change of weather, and that 

 any loss on one product is almost always made up on some 

 other one. 



And above this general faith in the operations of nature we 

 should reverently trust Him " who giveth food to all flesh ; for 

 his mercy endureth forever." 



There is yet a qualification to be mentioned, as important as 

 any that has been named : which is, the need of more infor- 

 mation on matters of public interest than is possessed by 

 farmers as a class. 



Of course the men now on the stage of active life are not 

 to be wondered at for this deficiency, as in their young days 

 the facilities for obtaining such information were not nearly so 

 abundant as at present. 



It is therefore to the young men, who, like myself, are just 

 beginning their career, that I would speak. In these days, 

 one must know something of events taking place beyond the 

 limits of his own State, or country even, if he would take a 

 position of importance in the community ; and as we are so 

 favored with good newspapers at cheap rates, there is no reason 



