the ^Agriculture of Massachuseils. 147 



tion has awakened them to the importance of new and im- 

 proved modes of cuhivation — and by inducing them to read 

 and reflect, while they have been increasing the product of 

 their farms, they have cuhivated and enhghtened their minds« 

 It is not saying too much, when we affirm that the Agricul- 

 tural Survey has added thousands of dollars to the Common- 

 wealth, while a false economy, and narrow views of the im- 

 portance of agricultural labors, have been the means of abol- 

 ishing an office requiring only the scanty allowance of a few 

 hundred dollars, yearly. On this head, the prefatory remarks 

 of the Commissioner should be read by every intelligent man. 



"The survey being now arrested, and, with the popular and severe 

 notions of public economy prevailing, not likely to be renewed, it 

 may not be unsuitable to inquire what has been done, and of what 

 advantage to the Commonwealth has it been instrumental? 



"The whole cost of the survey to the State thus far, had it been as- 

 sessed upon the inhabitants, would scarcely have exceeded a tax of one 

 cent per head; and this for the advancement of the greatest interest 

 of the community, though in many cases the least regarded. Almost 

 all the cost incurred in its prosecution has been expended in the 

 State, and has not gone out of the family. Of the amount (eighteen 

 hundred dollars per annum) paid to the Commissioner, nearly two 

 thirds have gone to the actual expenses of the survey; such as trav- 

 elling charges, payments for information procured, books distributed, 

 seeds and implements purchased for exhibition and gratuitous dis- 

 tribution among the farmers, and for various incidentals growing out 

 of the commission. The balance, varying from six to eight hundred 

 dollars, can hardly be considered as an over-compensation for the 

 time and labor devoted to this object. 



"The next inquiry is, what has the Commissioner done in the pre- 

 mises? Candid minds will not fail to reflect that an Agricultural 

 Survey was in this country a novel and altogether unattenipted en- 

 terprise; that the act, by which it was established, was couched in 

 the most general terms; and that it was left for the Commissioner 

 himself, unaided and unadvised, without chart or pilot, to navigate 

 sin untried sea. In respect to most things in life, it is far less diffi- 

 cult, after they have been done, to say how they might have been 

 better done, than before their accomplishment to say how they may 

 be best done, or even how they may be done at all. I ask no ex- 

 emption from just and honorable, though it may be severe criticism, 

 as that, should the work be hereafter resumed, will make its execu- 

 tion more easy for those to whom it may be entrusted; but I may 

 claim to have brought to the work the strongest enthusiasm and de- 

 sire for its success; and to have done what I could to execute it in a 

 creditable manner, and to meet the reasonable wishes of the State. 

 More cannot be had from the highest talents, and it is a consolation 

 to feel that more cannot be demanded of the most humble. A mind 

 actuated by a generous ambition of excellence never meets its own 

 wishes, because, in proftortion to its success, its standard of duty and 



