64 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



and skill which make our successful, practical farmers. Ascribe 

 nothing to chance, but, with minds ever open to new impres- 

 sions, accept the thoughts of others, and use them with industry 

 and skill in your daily toil. 



I present this view of the value of practical information as 

 the basis of our progress in agriculture, because it is the only 

 foundation upon which we can build. We, as a people, are 

 rooted upon our soil. We have the agricultural traditions of a 

 long line of hardy, industrious and prosperous farmers. The 

 laws by which they have subdued the earth are our text-book in 

 all our operations on the land. The mode of cultivation by 

 which they raised extraordinary crops, and their selections of 

 animals by which they secured remarkable herds, are a part of 

 our instruction, handed down by tradition, or imprinted on the 

 farms which they bequeathed their children. We may dwell 

 with delight upon the power of education to elevate and refine 

 a people ; we may elaborate our system of schools ; we may 

 spread knowledge broadcast over the land ; but we should never 

 forget that the best rules of New England farming were laid 

 down here by the sturdy yeomanry whose strength civilized 

 these hills, in whose hands the material prosperity of our State 

 rested half a century ago, whose ample abodes still remain in 

 our villages and along the roadsides, whose social position was 

 won by solid merit, who constituted that intelligent rural popu- 

 lation from whom the merchants, the lawyers and divines, and 

 statesmen of our day have sprung, and whose homes are still 

 waiting for a return of that wealth and intelligence which long 

 ago deserted them. We of New England should never forget 

 this. In our busy and restless and ambitious life, we have 

 poured all our best powers of mind and body into our towns 

 and villages, and exhausted them in the counting-room or the 

 forum, or in the hard toil of the inventive arts. We have 

 forgotten our old rural homes — those broad fields, those over- 

 shadowing trees, that substantial New England dwelling, whose 

 very presence even now tells of the staunch and reliable virtues 

 of those who have long since gone to their rest. We should 

 know that the charm of life is not in our cities and large towns. 

 Neither our moral nor our religious nor our physical natures 

 can be developed with that beauty of proportion of which man 

 is capable, so long as we prefer the feverish excitement of the 



