72 BOAED OF AGRICULTURE. 



HINDRANCES TO SUCCESSFUL FARMING. 



BY HON. JAMES 8. GRINNELL. 



The question, " Is farming in Massachusetts profitable"? 

 is constantly asked, and usually answered with prompt- 

 ness and decision, either in the affirmative or the negative ; 

 that it does or does not, according to the personal experi- 

 ence or the immediate observation of the respondent. 



When the answer is in the negative, and we are assured 

 that it does not pay to farm in New England, I believe that 

 there is some incapacity, or at least ineptitude, in the individ- 

 ual, or perhaps extraneous circumstances quite foreign to a 

 proper start in that occupation — or, indeed, in any other — 

 and probably outside his control. Whether a farmer con- 

 siders himself successful depends very much on the con- 

 struction of language. 



No one who sees a farm improving every year, by added 

 or repaired and painted buildings, new fences on outside 

 lines and interior ones removed, lands drained, trees 

 planted, crops of all kinds increased in quality and quantity, 

 sown, planted, cultivated and harvested by new and conven- 

 ient machinery, the stock of all kinds improved by grading 

 up and by thoroughbreds, would hesitate to say that the 

 owner of such a farm was making it pay. It pays not only 

 in the enhanced value of the property for use, for a sale if 

 it should ever be necessary or desirable, or for his widow 

 and children to whom it must in the course of nature inevi- 

 tably come. Farmers are naturally secretive as to every- 

 thing they own which is not exposed to the full glare of 

 their neighbors and the hated assessors, and many a one 

 thinks he is making it pay, if, continuing in the way of his 

 father and grandfather, patching the old, tumble-down, com- 

 fortless barn and sheds, covering but not half sheltering his 

 unimproved cattle and sheep, planting and harvesting as they 

 did, with no positive grasp on the improvements of the 

 times and the advance of science, by the severest of labor 

 and a continual denial to himself and family of comforts, 

 and even what others would call necessities, he saves, little 

 by little, enough to deposit in the savings bank a few hun- 



