18 MASSACHUSETTS AGEICULTUEE. 



ent elements necessary for the production of a given crop 

 were wanting ; methods of creating fertilizers have been dis- 

 covered ; ways of saving what were already on hand, but suf- 

 fered to go to waste, have been pointed out : improvements 

 have been made in tools, and machinery for the cultivation 

 and gathering of the products of the earth has been invented ; 

 crops have been increased ; better and nearer markets for the 

 disposal of the surplus products have been developed ; the 

 products of the soil have been increased in a variety of ways ; 

 two blades of grass made to groAV instead of one, and the re- 

 mote cause can be traced to the impulse given to this branch 

 of industry by the men who have given their time, their la- 

 bor, their powers and their energy to its advancement, not 

 solely for a living, but for the love they bear for the promo- 

 tion of the science of agriculture. 



I am the son of a farmer, bred and reared on a farm, and, 

 by the exertions of an honored sire, who, feeling the want of 

 an education, determined that his son should have a better 

 chance than himself, was enabled to graduate at Amherst ; 

 and yet I would to-day give the preference to the junior in- 

 stitution rather than the senior, believing the former can fit 

 a young man to make his way and his mark also, in any pro- 

 fession or pursuit, and at the same time establish in him hab- 

 its of manual labor, and also give him a knowledge of a busi- 

 ness that a large class of persons, especially those who in 

 boyhood have tasted its SAveets, wish to engage in, in the de- 

 clining, if not in the earlier, years of life. 



The distinguished clergyman of Adirondack fame, in his 

 address before the New England Agricultural Society, at its 

 late annual meeting, has given us the reasons why young 

 men have deserted the pursuit of agriculture. One is, that 

 it does not pay. Let us look at this matter. Will it not 

 pay in New England as well as anywhere else on the face of 

 the earth, if the farmer here will as readily consent to all the 

 deprivations which those are subject to in less favored por- 

 tions? If he will be content to live in a hovel or a log-house, 

 with thatch for a covering, and mud for a floor ; if he will 

 clothe himself in his own homespun ; if he will be satisfied 

 with " hog and hominy " as a universal diet ; if he can forego 

 all the pleasures of society, live without the blessings dissem- 



