Agriculture of Massachusetts. 



ELEMENTS OF SUCCESS ON THE FAEM. 



[From an Address before the Essex Society.] 



BY OLIVER S. BUTLER. 



Men fail of success because they have failed to find the 

 proper orbit in which God intended they should move, and 

 on this pivot turns the failure or the success in farming. 

 The principal factor in this difficult problem is the man. 

 The successful farmer is one who chooses liis vocation for 

 the love of it, and comes to it with just and proper concep- 

 tions of its nature and duties, and, in pursuing it, is not dis- 

 appointed. 



If a man really hates or detests his business, and pursues 

 it from necessity, he ought not to expect to succeed ; and his 

 failure ought not to be attributed to the nature of his busi- 

 ness, but to the nature of the man. He must not only come 

 to his calling with a love for it, but with just and proper con- 

 ceptions of its nature and duties. If a man enters upon any 

 business with wrong conceptions, or improper notions in 

 regard to its nature or the duties required, he will be sure 

 to fail of success. First he will be disappointed, and then 

 comes discontent, and then defeat and failure ; and many 

 a farmer has failed of success in his chosen calling from this 

 very cause. I have known many young men, who having 

 read our agricultural literature, or perhaps listened to the 

 after-dinner speeches at our fairs, have come to entertain a 

 sort of rose-colored view of agriculture, and, having chosen 

 farming for their business, have been undeceived when it 



