362 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



labors, by sufficient consideration in occasional holidays off 

 the farm with means of amusement, by consulting them on 

 the management of the farm, or by making them, to some 

 degree, partners or proprietors of some individual property 

 (as a colt, a calf, or a lamb), the ownership of which, with the 

 right to trade, gives a feeling of independence, and is one of 

 the first steps tending to educate the young farmer, and to 

 keep him contented upon the paternal acres. 



A child growing up, if regarded with some consideration 

 (something beyond mere jiaternal oversight), shown a little 

 equality and companionship, will be much more likely to be 

 reconciled to the life on the farm than if treated as a mere 

 hireling, or, even worse than that, as a worker without wages 

 and without sj'mpathy, unregarded, and with every thing to 

 make life enjoyable, except mere food, denied or grudgingly 

 allowed. 



It has been a conundrum of many years' standing, how 

 to keep the boj^s uj)on the farms, and to make them appre- 

 ciate the advantages they enjoy, and tlie motives which 

 really should actuate them, as the children of Massachusetts, 

 to stay at home. 



Her rewards to industry, enterprise, and good conduct, 

 directed by intelligence and under the guidance of temper- 

 ance and of prudence in the cultivation of her soil, are suf- 

 ficient to satisfy every reasonable desire, any proper moder- 

 ate ambition. 



Her social and religious institutions and privileges are jjre- 

 eminent, and such as no new and uncultivated territory can 

 expect to reach, under the most favorable circumstances, for 

 many years. 



Inquiring for the reasons why farming is declared by 

 many to be less profitable than formerly, and therefore to 

 have declined, after the natural tendency of us all to mag- 

 nify the past by depreciating the present, a prominent one is 

 to be found in the fact that farmers themselves are quite 

 too much inclined to belittle their occupation, its resources 

 and results, underrating their advantages and blessings, and 

 magnifying their difficulties and troubles, constantly com- 

 plaining that they have to work too hard, and that they 

 " can't make any thing at farming ; " and yet they have good 

 homes, good living, comfortable clothing, educated and well- 



