2 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



capcacity to appreciate wisdom, and opportunity also for its 

 exercise. 



The details of form administration, whether for approval or 

 criticism, are too minute for notice in a public address ; but 

 there are two features of opinion and practice so general as 

 to deserve consideration. With few exceptions, farmers look 

 for succ.'hs by curtailing their operations instead of enlarging 

 them. In this they diifer from the mechanic, the manufact- 

 urer and the merchant. The leader in these pursuits seeks 

 to enlarge his business, increase the number of his workmen, 

 and multiply his customers. He is content to add his earn- 

 ings and profits to his capital emplo^^ed. It is bad policy for 

 a merchant or manufacturer to withdraw his profits and invest 

 in shares, bonds or loans. He adds his annual profits to his 

 capital and measures his prosperity by the increase of his busi- 

 ness. But the farmer measures his prosperity by the additions 

 he makes to the available capital of other people, whose risks 

 he takes, but whose business he can neither understand nor 

 control. If a farmer, at the end of a year, finds himself in 

 funds over his expenses, is not the fact established that farm- 

 ing with him is profitable? And is not the inference a just 

 one that the use of his surplus would increase his profits in 

 the future proportionately ? But more than this is true. There 

 are certain and considerable farm expenses that are not pro- 

 portionate to the receipts. There are fences to build and re- 

 pair, ditches to cut, pastures to clear of brush, and other daily 

 work is to be done, insignificant in detail, but important in 

 the aggregate, that is determined mainly by the size of the 

 farm, and bears but a slight relation to its products. These 

 expenses are inevitable. I connect this statement with another 

 susceptible of proof. 



Every farm crop, estimated by the per cent., is exceeding- 

 ly profitable. This is true of market vegetables, fruits of 

 every variety, hay, the dairy, and of Indian corn even in New 

 England. 



Let any farmer state an account with each particular crop, 

 and he will find his per cent, of profit so large that he would 

 become a millionaire in five years if his aggrcfjate business 

 were only one-tenth as large as that of the leading merchants 

 and manufacturers of the country. 



