180 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



Mr. Russell. The proper function of the secretary of 

 the State Board is what the woman said was best about chil- 

 dren, — that they were to be seen, and not heard. 

 • The Chairman. But they are to mind. 



Mr. Russell. Yes, and mind. That is just what I was 

 coming to. In regard to the matter of wheat : I was partic- 

 ularly struck this fall with something that occurred in the 

 course of my experience ; and there are several persons here 

 who have heard me allude to it at the institutes. At the 

 New-England fair, they had, among other attractions. Gen. 

 Sherman. Gen. Sherman is from the West, and his ideas of 

 farming are largely drawn from his observation of Western 

 farms. He was very patronizing and kind to us. He patted 

 us on the head, and wondered that we should think of farming 

 in Massachusetts at all ; thought it was to our credit that we 

 undertook to cultivate our shallow, cold, and stony soil. He 

 alluded to it as a very praiseworthy and excellent attempt to 

 struggle against the forces of nature. Then he went on to 

 speak of a farm that he had recently visited, and made us 

 unhajDpy by drawing a comparison between what we got and 

 what they took from the great Dalrymple Farm in Dakota. 

 He said it was forty-five miles long. It was a good deal like 

 that farm that was so long, and ran through so many coun- 

 ties, that the Western man boasted, that, when they mort- 

 gaged it, the mortgage became due at one end before they 

 could get it recorded at the other. Well, Gen. Sherman 

 told us of those immense farms, and the vast quantity of 

 wheat in the aggregate that was raised on them. I went 

 away feeling rather sorry that I was the secretary of the 

 Board of Agriculture of such an unfortunate country as 

 Massachusetts ; but a few days after, I attended a little 

 town fair in Royalston, — one of the north-western towns of 

 Worcester County that had been stranded upon the hills by 

 the railroads, that have left it one side, — and, while I was 

 looking at the products of that town, I saw a sample of 

 spring wheat, — as handsome wheat as ever the Department 

 of Agriculture in Massachusetts sent out as specimen-seed, — 

 and, while I talked with the man who raised it, I reckoned 

 the value of it. He got thirty-one bushels to the acre ; 

 which is about the average yield, I believe, in Franklin 

 County. When I told him what I had reckoned up as his 



