AGRICULTURE OF MASSACHUSETTS. 385 



It has clearly and minutely explained to us the nature of 

 fertilizers, and how they become plant-food, and wherein con- 

 sists the value of our farmyard-manure, and how it may be 

 supplemented in another form by chemical elements, which, 

 when applied, nature assimilates to the wants of the plant. 

 It has taught, not only how to use these special fertilizers, 

 but also to distinguish between those which are genuine and 

 valuable and those which are fraudulent and worthless. 



In a word, agricultural chemistry has done more than 

 any thing else during the past half-century to elevate the 

 hard-working but intelligent farmer from a mere imitator — 

 in his cultivation — of those who went before him, to be a 

 reasoning, thoughtful manager of such elements as are under 

 his control. 



Forty years ago how many farmers would understandingly 

 or patiently have endured an essay from a brother farmer, or 

 from one of our teachers, which treated of animal or vegetable 

 physiology, nitrogenous or non-nitrogenous food for stock, of 

 the importance of nitrogen as plant-food, of phosphates or 

 nitrates, of the chemical composition of manure, of the aera- 

 tion of the soil, and a hundred other such matters now taught 

 to the children in the schools, and applied by the fathers on 

 the farms ? 



While the acquirement of this scientific knowledge has 

 tended to elevate and expand the ideas of the farmers, im- 

 proved machinery, as an adjunct, has enabled them to employ 

 more brain-work in the management of their farms, while 

 reducing the amount of the severest physical labor yet to 

 increase their productiveness. 



Fifty years ago the farmers cut the ripening grain with 

 the sickle or the cradle. The cheerful clatter of the mowing- 

 machine had never startled the stillness of the early morning 

 on their broad meadows or their well-tilled hillsides : they 

 mowed with the scythe. 



" Each stalwart mower, emulous and strong, 

 Whose writhing form meridian heat defies, 

 Bends o'er his work, and every sinew tries." 



They turned the grass with a fork, and gathered the hay 

 with a hand-rake. They broke the " stubborn glebe " with a 

 hard-running plough, and pulverized the soil by persistent 



