16 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



instincts. They know that combined force is a power that 

 has not been exerted for the benefit of the craft, but has l)een 

 controlled by the interest of others instead of its own. There 

 has not been that esprit de corps among the fraternity, which, 

 properly exercised, tends to promote its own interests. They 

 have pulled too many chestnuts out of the fire, and others have 

 eaten them while they themselves were blowing ou their fingers 

 instead of blowing up those imposing on them. Not that I 

 would inculcate a clannish spirit, but I would have them re- 

 member that in unity there is strength, and that no interests 

 are well cared for unless cared for by the parties most in in- 

 terest. 



Again, the great mass of farmers look upon farming as a 

 doomed occupation, instead of the most interesting and ele- 

 vating in tlie whole round of employments. It is the man 

 that ffives character to the occupation, and not the occupation 

 that eives character to the man. Let a man who has the dis- 

 position to invest in ftirming, money either inherited or ac- 

 quired by energy in other pursuits, move into a neighbor- 

 hood, and he is kept at arm's length, regarded as a fancy 

 farmer, instead of being watched for the purpose of learning 

 if peradventure there may not be something in his experi- 

 ments and practice that may be new to them, and worthy of 

 imitation by all. 



Look back on the New England agriculture of fifty years 

 asfo, and what a chansie ! Now, althous^h this business at 

 that time stood relatively much higher when compared Avith 

 other pursuits than at present, farming as a business in New 

 Enofland is now far in advance of what it was at that time. 

 What has contributed to produce this change? Nothing, in 

 my opinion, has done more to bring about this result than 

 this despised class of fancy farmers. And how is this? 

 They have shoAvn by their experiments that improvements can 

 be made, although many of their ncAV-faugled notions result in 

 complete failures. They enter on the business, not for the 

 purpose of making money, but from love of the business, 

 from love of the beautiful, from love of nature, desiring more 

 constantly, more intimately, and more reverently to " look 

 through nature up to nature's God." 



The poor farmer has the opportunity brought to his own 



