22 MASSACHUSETTS AGEICULTURE. 



All the products of the soil grow and mature from food 

 deposited there before the germination thereof. This to a 

 certain extent is deposited in growth and decay, but it has 

 a limit. You cannot solve the problem of plant-growth by- 

 continual subtraction, to the entire exclusion of addition, 

 but by multiplication of fertilisers jou may enjoy a rich 

 division of products. No farmer can cheat his land without 

 beinff doublv cheated himself. You can draw from the soil 

 only what nature and yourself have imparted to it. If you 

 want large products, furnish ample material, and the plant 

 will not fail to convert it to its use. 



A wide-awake, live Yankee may mortgage his farm to ex- 

 tend his acres under favorable circumstances, but it would be 

 wiser to mortgage it for a fertilizer, if he cannot obtain it 

 without, because in this way the value of his laud and crop 

 are both doubled. This is not necessary, if you will only 

 save and manufacture all that is within your means. Increase 

 the fertility of your soil by withdrawing deposits from a bank 

 of muck, and depositing the same in your hog-stys, cow- 

 yards and stables. By so doing, you will be enabled ere- 

 long to make investments in Ayrshire, Durham or Jersey 

 stock, which for the farmer is more profitable than any stocks 

 or bonds of gold-bearing coupons, and more safe than any 

 fancy stock which promises that the annual interest shall ex- 

 ceed the principal. The successful business man adds his 

 profits to his capital, and makes larger investments in the 

 same business, in order to make la <.er profits. Why will 

 not the farmer go and do likewise? 



Many a man who in early life was reared on a farm, after 

 his eiforts in business have been crowned with success, re- 

 turns to some spot enshrined among New England hills, 

 endeared by early associations, where he hopes the birds sing 

 as sweetly and the brooks babble as softly as they did in his 

 spring-time of life, and where he can quietly pass the re- 

 mainder of his days, and peacefully be laid in his mother- 

 earth, near where wore first imfolded to his vision the beau- 

 ties of a New England landscape. 



One word to farmers' boys, and I have done. If there be 

 any young man within the sound of my voice to whom form- 

 hig is distasteful, who has a penchant for counter-jumping 



