26 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



bushels to the acre ; if Jabez Fisher, in Worcester County, by 

 ploughing twice, twelve inches deep, and using compost freely, 

 gets ninety-two bushels ; if J. E. Porter, of Hadley, by using 

 muck-compost, gets eighty bushels, and B. P. Ware, of Mar- 

 blehead, ninety bushels, and Dr. Hartwell, of Southbridge, 

 eighty-six bushels, and Wm. E. Livingston, of this society, by 

 subsoiling and composting, gets seventy-five bushels — who shall 

 say that the average of twenty-nine bushels to the acre is not 

 a reproach to the farming of Middlesex, and a discredit to her 

 three agricultural societies ? If our farmers would only culti- 

 vate as much as they can plough well and manure well^ how 

 much better, even if they left the rest waste, and especially 

 if they would devote the remainder to sheep-raising, that 

 profitable, improving, but wofully neglected branch of our 

 county's agriculturQ. 



I believe a cardinal truth to be as follows : He is the best 

 cultivator who produces a given crop, from the smallest surface, 

 with equal expense. If this be acted on, the natural result will 

 be smaller farms, and many more of them. 



In conclusion — to occupy the room which improved cultiva- 

 tion will produce, how is the rising generation to be induced to 

 adhere to agriculture ? It is a lamentable fact that a constantly 

 decreasing proportion of the young folks seem satisfied with 

 country life. There is a longing and pressure for employment 

 in villages and cities. It has been estimated that of each one 

 hundred young men who come into the city to go into trade, 

 only three secure a competence, and only one dies rich. How 

 shall the other ninety-seven be persuaded not to come to the 

 city at all — not to peril independence and manliness, and too 

 often health and virtue ; not to become any man's servant, run- 

 ning at his call, living on his favor, and always fearful of losing 

 that ? What anxieties and midnight studies, what desperate 

 endeavors, what "unhappiness, and what longings for the quiet 

 old country life, attend on city business, 'even in most cases 

 where success is the final result ! How shall the ninety-seven 

 be saved this, and be led to remain in that life where prosperity 

 is so nearly certain, and where reasonable skill and energy is so 

 sure of a due reward ? 



Rural life must be made as attractive as possible. The 



