20 THE MASSACHUSETTS SOCIETY 



fall could make the sum go no farther than to buy a 

 goose for his Thanksgiving dinner. 



Some appeal to patriotism with reference to State 

 interests may have been prompted by a movement 

 which began in 1788 for settlement of the Ohio Terri- 

 tory, Nothing of record shows this to have been the 

 case, but it is at least probable that it was felt, that, to 

 compete successfully with the fertile West, and so 

 retain at home the most vigorous and ambitious of the 

 farming population, the art of agriculture must be 

 fostered and advanced in every practicable way. 



But the prevalent poverty was not the only adverse 

 circumstance. The low condition of the agricultural 

 art was another. Farming in the old way, when each 

 year added tracts of rich virgin soil by the clearing of 

 forests, was no longer possible. No method of ade- 

 quately restoring the exhausted soil appears to have 

 been generally practiced or even known. It was about 

 this time that occurred those instances referred to in 

 the first report of the State Board of Agriculture, in 

 which barns were removed to get them conveniently 

 away from the accumulated heaps of manure, which 

 heaps were regarded simply as a nuisance. The plough 

 of the period was a clumsy structure of v/ood, having 

 here or there a cutting projection of iron and a strip 

 of iron-facing where the most wear came. All tools 

 were heavy and cumbrous, strength being gained by 

 increasing the weight of iron, and the use of steel being 

 restricted to the maintenance of a cutting edge where 

 that was indispensable. Four-wheeled farm vehicles 

 were unknown. Seeds were sown, orchards pruned 

 and fire wood and timber cut with regard to the phases 

 of the moon and the contingency of the new moon's 

 lying upon its back or standing upon its horn. With 

 fire places everywhere in use, suited to produce and 



