FARMING AS A BUSINESS. 21 



FARMING AS A BUSINESS. 



From an Address before the Worcester North Society. 



BY GEORGE E. TOWNE. 



The distinctive feature of agriculture is the multiplication of 

 of products by suhjecting them to the action of natural causes. 

 This is true of the production of field crops. The farmer is also 

 a manufacturer, to the extent of his butter, cheese, cider, curing 

 of hay and general preservation of his crops. Indeed, it seems 

 to me that really scientific farming requires a knowledge of more 

 things than does any other branch of business. Mineralogy, so 

 far as is concerned the nature and treatment of soils ; chemistry, 

 at least the simpler forms of chemical action and combination 

 governing the laws of growth ; botany, at least the botanical 

 structure of the plants he wishes to grow ; the habits, wants and 

 diseases of all kinds of domestic animals ; a little about insects, 

 and a good deal about getting rid of them, are but a few of the 

 forms of knowledge essential to the farmer. I do not say that 

 all farmers know all these things ; I only say they ought to. 

 Something very like instinct, convictions born of observation, 

 precedent and necessity, and developed, it must be confessed, to 

 a condition of remarkable accuracy and correctness, have gen- 

 erally supplied the place of science to the farmer, and served as 

 his guide to action. But I am speaking in the belief that, as in 

 meclianics, so in farming, the day of estimates, guesswork, 

 allowances and " working by the eye," has gone, or is going by, 

 and in place of these, scientific rules, based upon known princi- 

 ples, are to govern and lead to precision and absolute certainty 

 of results. 



Besides these features in farming, there is one important 

 difference between it and most other kinds of business. While 

 with the manufacturer and the merchant, home and all the 



