PROGRESS IN FARMING. 



AN ADDRESS 



Delivered at the Forty- Fourth Annual Fair of the Housatonic 



Agricultural Society, at Great Harrington, 



October 2d, 1885, 



BY EEV. HIRAM EDDY, D. D., 



OF CANAAN, CONN. 



Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen : — 



What I know about farming may not be half so interesting, nor 

 in any degree as important as what I do not know. And the more I 

 think on the subject, the more I am inclined to believe that this may 

 be true with those who have investigated the subject most thoroughly. 

 Not only new stars appear in the heavens, adding to the star light 

 that struggles into our atmosphere, but new light is continually 

 being thrown on the science of Agriculture, so that the farm of to- 

 day is not what it was fifty years ago. But while the farm is so 

 broad a subject, yet it is a field on which one may pick up a gem of 

 thought here and there, although he may be neither a theoretical nor 

 practical farmer. And contemplating the subject in this general way 

 may serve a purpose, amidst so much, not too much, of specialty and 

 statistic. Then for our present theme of thought and remark, let 

 this be the one around which we revolve, like the miller around the 

 lamp, sometimes to be sucked into the flame and consumed, but in 

 both cases, for the instant, adding a tiny spark to the flame. 



The word farm, or the Anglo Saxon "feorm," in the Northumbrian 

 version of the New Testament spelled <k ferme," in the old Latin 

 " firma," originally meant a feast, an entertainment, hospitality, pro- 

 visions. And the original meaning still inheres in the word ; for the 

 world is still feasted and entertained from the farm. The prince and 

 the begger are alike entertained, nay, are beneficiaries and pensioners 



