38 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



do more to raise the standard of farming than any other one 

 thing. You may say you cannot afford to go through all that 

 process. Allow me to say there is not a farmer in this house 

 who can better spend ten minutes of each day, and one whole 

 day at the end of the year, than in just such business. Just 

 try it, and at the end of the year compare notes ; review your 

 accounts, and see which pays the best ; see where you would 

 have saved money that you did not ; see where you have spent 

 money that you need not. Farmers have no business to be 

 guessing at conclusions all their lives. There is an old adage 

 that " figures won't lie." One reason why farmers are so little 

 inclined to keep accounts is, because they have not been 

 educated to it. Book-keeping should be a branch taught in all 

 our district schools. Its study would be vastly more useful 

 than the study of algebra and higher mathematics. To be able 

 to add, subtract, multiply and divide rapidly and correctly, and 

 a knowledge of keeping accounts, together with a knowledge of 

 fractions, is of vast importance to tlie practical man. 



We sometimes see no less than some ten or a dozen buildings 

 and appurtenances scattered about to make up a complete farm 

 set. Neither for looks nor convenience is it desirable that the 

 farmer should surround his premises with a multiplicity of 

 small buildings, small yards and small lots. Let the farmer 

 surround his home with thrift, neatness and order. Let it be 

 embellished with fruits and flowers. Let there be a supply of 

 desirable books and papers, that his children may be storing 

 their minds for future usefulness, and not forced to seek in the 

 bar-room and grocery an apology for that society they should 

 find at home. The degree of civilization, the wealth and the 

 general taste and refinement of a community, or of individuals, 

 may be judged with great accuracy, by a glance at the surround- 

 ings of their home. From the Indian living in his wigwam, the 

 Greenlander living in his hut of ice, the wandering Arab taking 

 his tent with him, or the cottage of the domestic peasant of the 

 uobility-owned soil of Europe (so domestic that his brutes are 

 tenants of the same roof,) we pass through all the various 

 stages of civilization to the clean, comfortable, beautiful, con- 

 venient and best arranged premises of the New England 

 farmer ; tastefully kept, carefully designed with reference to 

 convenient location, convenience of internal arrangement, 



