1869. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



25 



our young men from the farm, and that in re- 

 spect to some of these things we are to blame. 

 The responsibility rests upon us as farmers ; it 

 rests upon all the agricultural societies in New 

 England ; and in a great measure upon the so- 

 ciety that meets here at this time. 



I have more than once said, in meetings of 

 this kind, that I would rather a man would 

 take a boy of mine, and cowhide him thorough- 

 ly, than to give him a colt. Why ? Because 

 if you give a boy a colt, nine times in ten, it 

 leads him directly from the farm, and into so- 

 ciety that real, honest, substantial farmers 

 will not like to be found in. I have attended 

 this Fair, and stood here upon the ground at- 

 tending to my own business, but with some 

 eye to the management. Allow me to ciitcise 

 the management of this large and influential 

 New England Society. 



What has been going on, on the grounds of 

 the exhibition? What has been kept most 

 prominent — and what has not been ? It was 

 not the boy who trained the steers ; it was not 

 the young man who h:id trained the oxen; it 

 was not the older farmer with his herd of 

 cows. What was it? Why, it was the fast 

 horse. We are governed to-day l)y the fast 

 horse mania, and this influence is doing more 

 to crush and break down the iaflnence of real, 

 substantial agriculture in New England, than 

 all other influences combined ; and if you, my 

 friends, real, sub.-itaniial farmers as yoa are, 

 don't stand up here, or somewhere else, 

 and meet this question, it will still go on, and 

 in less years than have already gone over the 

 heads of your ^ocitty, and yoursilves as mem- 

 bers of this society, the fast horte interest 

 will control it, or whatever there is left of the 

 skeleton of it. * 



Is this so ? If it is, it is time for us to 

 speak. I know the strength of this influence, 

 for I have seen it. 1 have been connected 

 with agricultural societies for the last fifteen 

 or twenty years, and have wat<-hed it carefully, 

 and I stand here to day to tell you that there 

 is but one agricultural society in New England 

 where the real, substantial firm'^r controls it. 

 Our exhibition last year, was the best exhibi- 

 tion in the State, notwithstanding the c iForts 

 made to get up a State agricu'tural exhibi-ion. 

 I mean the tociety at Hill.-boro' Bridge. 

 There, the real farmer controls it. We have 

 a good, substantial farmer as president; we 

 have a practical farmer as secretary, and we 

 look very carefully to our coicmiltees, that 

 they be good, substantial farmers. Unless 

 the fast horse gets the control, we shall con- 

 tinue to have a good society. We had last 

 year a string of oxen that reached clear around 

 the track — a half mile track. AVhat was the 

 exhibition of oxen on the track here to-day ? 

 All I saw was a few working oxen. 



In regard to interesting our boys in farming, 

 I believe in beginning with them early, and 

 giving them work.to do. 1 believe in putting 

 responsibility upon them. Send them to do a 



piece of work, and if they ask you how they 

 shall do it. tell them to go and do it to the best 

 of their ability; and if they fail, and you lose 

 five dollars because of that failure, they will 

 get experience that will be worth perhaps five 

 hundred dollars to them. How many of us do 

 this ? IIow many of us put a basket of grain 

 into a boy's hands, when we are ready to sow, 

 and tell him to scatter it to the Lest of his 

 ability, and leave it to his own judgment. I 

 have done it a little, and I have seen the effects 

 of it. We don't manage our boys right. We 

 get up in the morning and say, "John, go and 

 get the oxen, and yoke them ;" and, if he asks 

 what we are going to do, we say, "No matter ; 

 go and get the oxen ;" and the boy goes away 

 with a kind of sour feeling, and with no inter- 

 est in what is to be done dunng the day ; 

 whereas, if we took him over night, and asked 

 him what he thought had better be done, and 

 interested him in what we proposed to do, he 

 would be ready to go to work in earnest. I 

 don't stand here to brag, but 1 have pursued 

 this course Avith one boy, who, after going 

 away into other business, came to me and said, 

 "I can come home and work with a great deal 

 more relish than I can go an} where else." 



There is another thing that has a tendency 

 to reduce the respect of outsiders for the farm- 

 ing interest, or at least for agriculture, and 

 that is, there are so many who are fond of 

 writing upon agricultural matters. I will relate 

 a little circumstance, to show you that an ag- 

 ricultural writer can be mistaken. A certain 

 agricultural editor received a letter inquiring 

 when was the best time to shear sheep. That 

 is a very important matter with sheep-raisers. 

 A man should have a great deal of judgment 

 to find that out. Well, the editor sits down, 

 states the question, and sums it up in this way : 

 "We have had no experience in the matter, 

 never having raised sljeep or grown wool ; but 

 we presume that when the old flvece ceases to 

 grow, and the new fleece commences, is the 

 right time to shear." So it seems that we 

 need not only intelligent writers, but intelli- 

 gent editors, for our agicultural papers. I 

 think that an agricultural paper^ edited by a 

 practical farmer, a man who can show the 

 iiard bunches on his hands, is worth a dozen 

 edited by men who carry a quill^ehind their 

 ears, and have hands as soft as a woman's. It 

 strikes me it is certain evidence of intelligence 

 in an agricultural editor, to be able to use the 

 hoe, and use it as he ought to use it. 



Improving Worx Lands. — The Ameri- 

 can Farmer, of Baltimore, gives an account of 

 the manner in which a poor worn-out piece of 

 land was brought into a high state of fertility. 

 The most unpromising part was a field of 

 blowing sand, so poor that the rye sown on it 

 did not pioduce the teed the year that the im- 

 provement was begun. "Its poverty was still 

 i'urther illustrated the following year by a 



