LECTURES AND ESSAYS READ AT INSTITUTES. 345 



would prefer to have straw plowed under dry than burnt, as that can not be 

 afEorded any longer, nor is it policy to sell it off the farm unless its equivalent 

 is returned to the farm in barnyard manure. I am indebted to Prof. Armsby 

 of the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station in his *' manual of cattle 

 feeding" for some of the information in this paper. As the grain which 

 which grows upon the straw is the best part of the plant, it is desirable that in 

 the discussion of this subject it may be thoroughly shaken up until all the 

 wheat is sifted out (provided this paper contains any of that best portion) and 

 made profitable to us. 



THE MILLENNIUM OE AGEICQLTUKE. 



BY IRA H. BUTTERFIELD. 

 [Read at the Armada Institute.] 



Agriculture, in these days is a progressive calling. It has ever been a thing 

 of growth; the progress has been slow, but perhaps co-equal with the growth 

 and progress of all the material world. It was no doubt intended by the 

 Creator that ages would be required for the full growth and ripening of all 

 material things, as well as of moral, and we must not expect too soon to reach 

 the goal of our ambition, in relation to agriculture. 



The first calling to engage the attention of man, it will also be among the 

 last; at least, so long as there are bodily wants to provide for must he culti- 

 vate the soil. It has been the vocation of man from the beginning. From 

 his Creator he received instructions to dress and keep the garden. Even 

 among the spontaneous growths which pervaded the gardens of paradise there 

 was work to do. It may be that weeds did not then grow, choking fruits and 

 flowers to the annoyance of the husbandman, but even there the soil needed 

 stirring for the easier penetration of the minute rootlets, and that it might 

 more thoroughly absorb and retain the moisture. Trees, from their luxuriant 

 growth, needed the hand of the trainer and pruner. Now, weeds compel the 

 cultivation and dressing or the crop is cut off, even from a fertile soil ; a 

 blessing in disguise, no doubt, but hard to receive. "In the sweat of thy face 

 shalt thou eat bread," although no surer inheritance to the farmer than to 

 other toilers, is a command he will always remember. 



It is hardly necessary to trace the progress of agriculture all along the 

 centuries, from the first to the present. It is sufficient to say that the progress 

 has been slow but constant, sometimes retrograding in periods of the world's 

 moral darkness, and again coming forward when light dispelled the gloom ; 

 but it has been reserved for the present century to witness the greatest strides 

 in this, in common with all other industries, greater in many respects than in 

 all the other centuries combined ; to see it placed on a higher plane in the 

 general estimation than has ever before been permitted. 



In view of what has come to pass in the last fifty years, may we not look for 

 continued advancement to come. Things that are possible to us were quite 

 impossible to our fathers, and who can say there are not still greater heights 

 to scale before the summit is reached. There may be a limit to human knowl- 

 edge and human energy, but we have not attained to it. In that thousand 



