14 



The farthest limit which the New Enghmder can attain in 

 the direction of stock-raising is tlie dairy farm ; and though 

 up to this point there is absokitely no reason why New En- 

 gland farming should not pay, and, as I have endeavored to 

 show, there is every evidence that it does yield a fair return 

 as gauged by other pursuits, — capital, skill and risk consid- 

 ered, — yet it is certain that beyond this we cannot go. For 

 the pure stock-farm, the plains of the Far West offer their 

 vast extent of common, with climate so mild as often to ren- 

 der useless the labor of the herdsman in providing winter's 

 Ibod or shelter. It may prove that under the influence of 

 those fertile fields and sunny pastures, live stock will degen- 

 erate, — that the rugged hills and severer climate of New En- 

 gland are better fitted to maintain the vigor of the j^arent 

 stock. Be this as it may, the greater price of less fertile 

 pasture and the long wintering far more than counterbalance 

 any advantage that could ])ossibly be derived from nearness to 

 markets ; and the New England farmer has done well to 

 abandon all effort to make stock-raising generally profitable. 



Upon the methods and uses which now obtain in the variq^us 

 branches of husbandry, it is scarcely the province of a gen- 

 eral essay to enter ; and especially Avith regard to details of 

 observation or ex})eriment, such an effort could lead to no 

 satisfactory result. Indeed, it is chiefly owing to a desire on 

 the part of many agricultural writers, from the narrow basis 

 of their own experience, to establish rules for general prac- 

 tice, that a contemj)t for so called book-farming has sprung 

 up among practical agriculturalists. Not altogether is the 

 writer to be blamed. To be carried away with theories which 

 owe their birth to one's intellectual travail, is the most natural 

 thing in the world ; and the learner seeking for truth, ought 

 to take into consideration this enthusiasm of a writer over his 

 own productions and weigh each statement as gold of sus- 

 pected coinage. The results of experiments are seldom wil- 

 fully misstated, no matter how blindly truth and O'ror are 

 confounded in deduction ; so that an impartial investigation 



