AGRICULTURE OF MASSACHUSETTS. 



WHAT TO DO WITH THE FARM 



From an Address before the Essex Agricultural Society. 



BY R. n. SEELEY. 



The ownership of land in itself is honorable. The retention 

 of a homestead and farm in the possession of a family is one of 

 the most desirable things, whether we consider it as a matter of 

 investment, or of a just and honest pride, as the foundation of a 

 sentiment of family respectability and honor, which successive 

 generations feel themselves bound to maintain, thus proving a 

 safeguard to the children, restraining them from conduct which 

 might disgrace the family name, or sacrifice the cherished 

 inheritance. 



Having decided to retain the farm, the question what to do 

 loith it, returns ; and the solution of this question can be 

 reached only by taking into consideration the adaptedness of the 

 farm to this or that purpose, its extent, aspect, soil, and relation 

 to the market. 



As it should be worked with a view to profit, the first thing 

 to ascertain is, lohat it may be made to produce that is worth 

 raising — that ivilt pay. 



We may safely assume, at the outset, that no man in our* 

 good county of Essex can make his farm very profitable who 

 works it on the plan, too frequently pursued, of raising scatter- 

 ing patches of corn, potatoes, rye, oats, beans and grass, on a 

 small scale, and half starved soil ; with a large extent of cider 

 orchard, left unmanured and uncultivated, a perfect hotel for 

 caterpillars, borers, canker-worms, and apple-moths ; this lean 

 1* 



