i<; 



BOARD OF AGRICULTUEE. 



Now, if men and women of the highest degree of intelli- 

 gence and moral worth are of the greatest necessity to a new 

 State, in order to promote its prosperous growth, what, may 

 we not ask, does an old State like ours need, to enable it to 

 hold its own, and especially against a competition carried on 

 for the express purpose of drawing away the best of our peo- 

 ple ? In the face of such a competition as the promoters of 

 western immigration are now carrying on, with their volumi- 

 nous agricultural reports, sent free to every applicant ; their 

 beautifully gotten up advertising circulars and pamphlets 

 kept on deposit by the barrel in every important eastern 

 railroad station and hotel office ; their exhibition cars filled 

 with the best specimens of grains, vegetables and fruits, grown 

 on virgin soil, and wheeled around from one eastern State 

 fair to another, every autumn, does it not begin to look as if 

 the one great question which every one of us should ask is, 

 What can Massachusetts farmers do to be saved ? In an- 

 swering this question I should say first, — see to it that the 

 legislature sustains the State Board of Agi'iculture and puts 

 it within the power of the Secretary to furnish every farmer 

 in the State, who will take the trouble to ask for it, a 

 copy of the annual report, and to the secretaries and mem- 

 bers of Boards of Agriculture in other States, copies in ex- 

 change, as freely as they send them to us. Let the State 

 Board of Agriculture of Massachusetts have the means of ad- 

 vertising to the world, and especially to her own citizens, 

 what are the agricultural capabilities of her own soil, her 

 own climate and her own home markets. 



I had hoped to have been able to spend a larger part of 

 the past summer among the farmers of our Western States, 

 that I might have seen with my own eyes how western peo- 

 ple live, and what advantages they may really have over us, 

 that I mio-ht have had something to tell the eastern farmers 

 this winter that would have been interesting if nothing more. 

 I wanted to see a crop of corn and a crop of wheat grown on 

 a prairie soil from the seed to the full corn in the ear. But 

 the West is large, and I had only time to visit that part which 

 loas West a few years ago. I am not sure, however, that a 

 Massachusetts farmer cannot learn the lessons which he 

 needs to learn, quite as well in New York, Ohio or Kentucky 



