No. 4.] BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 401 



quent changes are a loss to the society and a greater loss to 

 the Board. 



I do not mean by this to be understood that intellect is all 

 that is needed, or the criterion of usefulness, or that one 

 class should obtain to the exclusion of the other. The record 

 of the Board proves the safety and the advantage this 

 mingling of interests, practical, experimental and scientific, 

 has wrought, — the strength of a triple cord that cannot 

 easily be broken. Therefore, in view of the work of the 

 past, who shall say which were the more necessary to the 

 best interests of this Board or to its broadest influence on 

 the farming of Massachusetts, — the professor or the farmer. 

 The one takes his results from science, the other from obser- 

 vation and experience ; the one from the laboratory of sci- 

 entific knowledge, the other from the laboratory of nature's 

 alchemy ; and so, working together, the conservation of 

 truth is found and preserved to bless the State and the country. 



True, " Gold and meal are measured otherwise ; " but who 

 shall say which is the more important ; or where shall the 

 professor's knife be drawn to cut away the farmer ; or where 

 shall the farmer's sickle be thrust in to exclude the professor, 

 or count his work as needless? 



Only a few years ago it was the work of this Board to 

 induce the farmers to accept and adopt the deductions of 

 science. The farmer was slow, and he had reason to be, for 

 under that name he was cheated on every hand ; and fertiliz- 

 ers that did not fertilize, attested by chemists who betrayed 

 science for gold, were preying on his very life ; but to-day he 

 has learned the lesson well, and he gives the professor who has 

 toiled for his benefit sincerest praise and honor. But let 

 not the other decry or put out from this laboratory of Mas- 

 sachusetts agriculture the practical common-sense or the 

 strong right arm of the working farmer, lest the Board 

 receive detriment to itself. Together they have given it 

 strength, and together let them stand to conserve its future 

 power. 



The recommendations of his Excellency the Governor of 

 this Commonwealth in reference to this Board are favorably 

 received and generally commended. It is pleasing to find 

 the Governor of the State and president of this Board so 



