AGRICULTURE AT HOME AND AT THE WEST. 31 



at Washington, while in her vineyards, as in the fineness of 

 her woven textures, she beats the world. Shame on us, 

 boasting, liberty-loving Americans, thus to be compelled to 

 take lessons from the old worn-out empires of Europe. Yet 

 the quicker we learn that we are yet infants in the science of 

 agriculture, and in the development of our resources, the 

 better will be the future of farming and industrial pursuits. 

 The time has gone by when the farmer is expected to be 

 everything at once, — a stock-raiser, a pomologist, a horticult- 

 urist, a dealer in thoroughbreds, a dairy-man, a wheat-grow- 

 er, a cultivator of potatoes and tobacco, a reclaimer of 

 swamps, a landscape-gardener, and a pettifogger of his own 

 lawsuits to boot ; yet all these he was expected to be in the 

 New England farming-days of the past. All this has gone by. 

 Thoroughness should be the motto of the hour. Breadth 

 of acres will not save us. Twenty acres to the ftirm supplies 

 the Frenchman, and yet the farmers of Massachusetts aver- 

 age one hundred acres. If you wish for the advice of a lay- 

 man, here it is : Pursue specialties ; concentrate your forces ; 

 double up the old farm in value as you bisect and trisect it in 

 quantity ; keep your boys at home and give each a slice of 

 the old homestead. Thank God, we have no law of primo- 

 geniture in Massachusetts, Avhatever may have been our prac- 

 tice. Teach one of your sons to be a breeder of thorough- 

 breds, another to be a pomologist and vine-dresser, a third — 

 if the list extends so far — to be a horticulturist and raiser of 

 carrots. Teach them this : that w^hatever they do must be 

 done thoroughly, and to put the plough to the beam. Keep 

 up the dignity of your profession by reading the best news- 

 papers and scientific works on your calling, cultivate the 

 social amenities, and "take your wives often to the fair." 



Above all, be not too impatient of results. Not in a day — 

 not in a day — like Minerva, full-orbed from the brow of Jove, 

 is the farmer's inheritance brought forth from the sky and the 

 soil. His wealth is coined by the slow yet sure march of the 

 seasons, the patient handwork and brainwork of years. 

 Yet remember, that if his calling has made no such brill- 

 iant, such magnificent advances and strides in the old Com- 

 mouAvealth as has manufactures for the last two or three de- 

 cades, it has at least been spared the humiliation of the dark 



