C. T. RUSSELL'S ADDRESS. 399 



improvement. It is within the last fifty years, especially, that 

 they have realized that man does not farm as the swallow 

 builds her nest, as every other swallow has, since time begufi ; 

 but that reason, knowledge, and invention, have as wide a field 

 here as anywhere. It is these fifty years that have established 

 as cardinal principles of the farmer's faith, that improvement is 

 practicable, and that it is desirable. 



In accomplishing this work, much has been done by the 

 agricultural journals. They have gathered up, from week to 

 week, and month to month, the results of scientific cultivation, 

 and spread them before the public. They have brought out 

 from the store-houses of agricultural knowledge all that was 

 valuable, and laid it, in popular form, before the people. Few 

 of the works on scientific agriculture are generally accessible, 

 but their contents have been circulated by these papers. They 

 have excited discussion, and furnished it a medium. They 

 have recorded experiments, and opened the field for wide in- 

 ductions. They have maintained a high standard of improve- 

 ment, and struggled manfully to make it a reality. Without 

 the agricultural papers, Massachusetts would be far behind 

 her present position, and a better service can hardly be done to 

 her farming interests, than the generous support of such a 

 press. 



Having thus stated the great motive power for agricultural 

 progress, which the last fifty years has originated in our Com- 

 monwealth, I turn to some of the products it has thrown off 

 from its working points. Among these I have noticed none 

 more striking than the improvement in building. In estimating 

 this, as well as other improvements, we must bear in mind that 

 the railroads, superseding the old highways, have opened to 

 observation the poorest and worst cultivated parts of our State. 

 The hurrying passenger, on these thoroughfares, is precipitated, 

 the larger part of his way, through the lowest and wildest parts 

 of the Commonwealth. And yet, to such a passenger, who 

 carries with him the recollection of thirty years, the improve- 

 ment in building is striking. To one more leisurely surveying 

 the Avhole State, it is still more gratifying. 



There is now, about the buildings of the farmers of this 



