406 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



play to decide superiority in all lines of production, — have 

 had their effect upon Massachusetts farming. It is my pur- 

 pose to discuss briefly some of these principles, and, if possi- 

 ble, to reach wise conclusions. 



The early history of farming in New England was a 

 struggle for existence itself. Our forefathers contended 

 with a rigorous climate, a rough if not unfertile soil, to cul- 

 tivate which only the rudest implements were at command. 

 The simple necessities of their homes were meagrely sup- 

 plied by their own handicraft. Those were the days when 

 the scanty harvest of grain was made ready for the kneading 

 bowl with the pestle and mortar ; the spinning wheel and 

 hand loom prepared the material for a scanty wardrobe ; 

 exchanges of product were infrequent ; the farmer sold little 

 and bought but little ; the laws of supply and demand had 

 but narrow play to cause either a glutted or a depleted 

 market. In those days not even the fertile valley of the 

 Genesee had commenced to yield its abundant harvest, 

 much less the vast acreage beyond and beyond, that, step by 

 step and acre by acre, has responded in continually increas- 

 ing harvests to the touch of the eager settler. 



It is not my purpose to discuss at length the causes that 

 have wrought this wonderful development ; the laws of com- 

 petition themselves, in a country enjoying the political 

 liberties and natural resources of the United States, have 

 been the mainspring to set every wheel of industry and 

 improvement in motion. Banish from our thought for the 

 moment every other line of effort but the farmer's, and even 

 here we are amazed at the improved mechanical power put 

 into his hands to cheapen and increase the products of the 

 soil. The wooden plough, that with slow and toilsome 

 furrows imperfectly turned the earth, has given place to 

 implements that automatically and almost perfectly pre- 

 pare the soil for the seed. In this first agricultural step, 

 the present effort of one man equals the labor of ten 

 in the olden time. The mower, the reaper and binder, 

 the thresher, the centrifugal separator, — these and many 

 more implements of skill, though lightening the farmer's 

 toil, have at the same time multiplied his producing power, 

 and have thus not only filled to repletion our own markets, 



