432 SELECTIONS FROM ADDRESSES. 



which of itself produces this result. He will there perceive 

 the signs of that snug, independent, kind of comfort, the idea 

 of which can be nowhere so clearly brought to the mind 

 through the eye as in a well conducted farm. Where lies the 

 secret of the difference ? The answer is probably found in the 

 greater or less judicious application of capital and labor to the 

 purpose in hand ; the discrimination between one form of in- 

 dustry that will, and another that will not, pay a moderate but 

 certain return to the manager. 



But the question immediately arises, how are we to find this 

 out ? Without pretending to answer it, 1 may yet be allowed 

 to remark that much might be gained in Massachusetts if the 

 farmer could fix upon what he ought not to try to do. To 

 make losing experiments may do very well for the book-farmers 

 and those who depend upon other resources for their living ; it 

 will not answer for him whose margin of profits in the best of 

 times does not go far beyond giving him a comfortable support. 

 To such a man mistakes are fatal. For my part, so far from 

 wondering, as many do, that the agricultural community all 

 over the world is slow to move out of an old track, I am a lit- 

 tle surprised that so many are found to run any risks at all. 

 The great justification for it is, after all, necessity. If it be 

 once made clear that the opening of the western country makes 

 the old practice here unprofitable, then there is but one of two 

 things left to be done, either to let agriculture as a business 

 decline altogether, and turn our attention to other pursuits ; or 

 if it be deemed best further to pursue it, to adopt some new 

 practice which may make it tolerably productive. 



Looking at the county of Norfolk in this light, let us first 

 settle, if we can, what farmers are not likely to do with profit, 

 and then we may perhaps come at the other question what they 

 may succeed in. 



First of all, then, I take it for granted, they cannot raise any 

 of the cereal plants for sale at a profit ; some of them they can 

 scarcely raise at all. The agriculture of the United States may 

 now be readily distinguished in three broad lines. First, there 

 are the planting States of the south which raise for market the 

 great staples of cotton, tobacco and sugar. Secondly, there 



