74 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



should do, and their industry better directed. It is not by 

 great and splendid particular improvements, that the interests 

 of farmers here are best subserved, but by a general and 

 gradual amelioration. Most is done for agriculture when 

 every farmer is incited to small attentions and incidental 

 improvements. Such as proceed, for instance, from the 

 constant application of a few plain and common principles, 

 as, that in farming nothing should be lost and nothing be 

 neglected ; that everything should be done in its proper 

 time, and in a thorough manner ; everything put in its proper 

 place ; everything executed by its proper instrument, and 

 that instrument the best, whether manual, animal or me- 

 chanical. 



These attentions, when viewed in their individual effect, 

 seem small, but they are great in the aggregate and make or 

 mar success in farming. 



The judicious management and cultivation of a farm re- 

 quires a coml)incd and practical exercise by the farmer of all 

 the knowledge and skill necessary for the cultivation of the 

 articles separately that are produced on the farm. It 

 is obviously a different science from any other, more 

 complex, more difficult to learn, requiring judgment, experi- 

 ence and observation to carry It into successful practice. 



Next to an individual's own experience is a true and par- 

 ticular account b}'' others of a judicious and skilful cultiva- 

 tion and management of farms like his own, where the ex- 

 pense for labor, market for crops and habits of living are 

 nearly the same, if he can have their methods and practice 

 fully communicated to him. There is no doubt that under 

 proper conditions, such as would justify attempts at success 

 in any other occupations in life, the rewards of agricultural 

 labor in Massachusetts are ample, in that an industrious, 

 prudent man, with a fair start, — which means free from debt 

 and with health, — may not only obtain by skilful and careful 

 farming a comfortable subsistence, living well, practising a 

 proper and liberal hospitality, rear and educate his children, 

 always having a good home, and something more than mere 

 necessities of life, and constantly adding something to the 

 improvement and value of his farm and buildings as a most 

 safe and permanent investment. The foundation of national 



