384 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



If, then, there has been no decline, but an mimense advance, 

 in our material prosperit}'' in agriculture, is there any man 

 so bold and reckless as to declare that the farmers of Massa- 

 chusetts have declined in a social, domestic, and intellectual 

 way? 



Fifty years ago the first line was not built of that vast 

 network of railroads which stretches over all portions of our 

 Commonwealth, bringing every man, even from the remot- 

 est part of the State, within a half-daj^'s journey of a market, 

 and affording quick and easy intercommunication between 

 every county, giving opportunities for forming and continu- 

 ing acquaintance, gaining general information, and transact- 

 ing business unimagined in those earlier days of slow and 

 tiresome locomotion. 



Our turnpikes have become highwaj^s, and our highways 

 perfected. An agricultural college, the Board of Agricul- 

 ture, county societies, farmers' clubs and institutes, have 

 been established to enlighten and quicken the minds, and to 

 draw out the experiences, of farmers, by frequent meetings 

 for free discussions, and pleasant interchange of opinions on 

 those subjects that most concern them. 



It is less than fifty years since Justus von Liebig first 

 opened the volume of agricultural chemistry for common 

 inspection, followed by his contemporary Boussingault ; while 

 Voelcker, Lawes, Gilbert, and Anderson, in the Old Coun- 

 try, and later, in our own State, Dana, Nichols, Sturtevant, 

 Stockbridge, and Goessmann, have been worthy successors 

 and exponents of that science. 



The chemistry of agriculture has taught us, first, the im- 

 portance of draining and subsoiling, loosening and aerating, 

 the hidden depths of the soil, that plants may there find 

 proper moisture and sustenance ; it has taught us somewhat 

 the mysteries of plant-life, and how plant-organisms are de- 

 veloped to full maturity ; it has taught us respecting the ofiices 

 of the soil, the rain, the air, heat, and moisture, in accom- 

 plishing this work ; it has taught us that plants do not obtain 

 all their elements of growth from the mingled rock-dust and 

 humus which constitute soil, but that, wonderful as it ma}" 

 seem, they form from the atmosphere, almost alone, solid 

 forms of plant-organisms ; it also teaches us, that, in sup- 

 plying the food necessary for vegetable growths, different 

 plants require different nutriment. 



