MASS. BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 427 



the practical farmers. They possess all the practical knowledge 

 wiiich is of any value. Chemists may talk as much as they 

 please, with high flown language. The farmers have the 

 practical knowledge. 



The word science has been used. Science, we are glad to 

 learn, is knowledge. Farmers understand that. There was 

 one gentleman a little alarmed at science. He would not have 

 it. Now, what is the use of telling us, farmers, that there has 

 been no improvement for a dozen years past ? I live in the 

 vicinity of Worcester. Forty years ago, it was the practice 

 there, among all farmers, to let their cattle run at large, saving 

 none of the manure ; and not one man in forty attempted to 

 increase his manure by carting in substances to preserve the 

 essences. Fifty years ago, the hogs ran in the road, and no 

 manure was saved from them. Have not we made improve- 

 ment ? Your foreign chemists and your foreign professors will 

 all tell you that manure is the very foundation of all production 

 connected with agriculture ; and yet gentlemen will tell you, 

 and repeat that we have made no improvement with regard to 

 farming, even when we produce four or five times as much on 

 a given piece of land as we used to make, forty or fifty years 

 ago. I want this thing well understood. We have been led 

 astray ten times by chemists where we have got real informa- 

 tion from them once. 



But I would not undervalue chemistry. A farmer cannot do 

 anything, unless he makes more from his farm than he spends. 

 What we want, is to circulate the knowledge we possess. I 

 know there are some farmers who never make any improve- 

 ment. What we want is to wake these gentlemen up. And 

 the way to do it is the very mode suggested this evening by 

 his excellency, the governor. 



The resolution was adopted. 



The fourth and fifth resolutions, which were passed over in 

 the afternoon, were now read by the chair. 



The President. — There is a gentleman present who made 

 the investigations in relation to these schools in Europe, Presi- 

 dent Hitchcock, of Amherst. I have no doubt the convention 

 will be pleased to hear from him. 



