62 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



sidcring tlic age of the country and the original hardness of 

 the soil, are the best in the world ; that would not satisfy you. 

 You want to be going ahead, from good to better, from better 

 to best, and then to something beyond any thing yet existing. 

 Long, long will it be, before there will be no room for improve- 

 ment in the great and superlatively important art of beautify- 

 ing the earth and making it yield up its treasures to supply 

 farmers' wants. And I cannot but think, that if you will fully 

 appreciate your position as farmers, if you will realize its 

 responsibilities, if you will strive, by gathering information 

 from every possible source, to excel, and above all, if you will 

 educate your sons to be a little better farmers than yourselves, 

 provided they choose that line, for I want no compulsion in 

 this matter, a most important step will be gained towards con- 

 tinuous improvement. 



A third suggestion, or rather series of brief suggestions, for 

 I must not trespass upon your patience, shall relate to practical 

 farming. On the laying out of farms and the appropriation of 

 each part to objects best suited to it, three things are to be con- 

 sidered ; appearance, convenience, productiveness. If a man 

 have but one idea, and that be of beauty, he may sacrifice too 

 much of convenience and too much of solid stability to the 

 gratification of the eye — place a clump of trees on arable 

 soil instead of using it to cover up a deformity, or condense so 

 many shades in close proximity with his buildings, as seriously 

 to injure them and the health of their inmates, or devote time 

 to the merely ornamental, when he should be driving at sub- 

 stantial productiveness. 



If his one idea be of convenience, he will be likely to have a 

 cow' pen, a sheep pen, all sorts of pens just where they should 

 not be ; a building to make cider in, and another to husk corn 

 in ; another for fall fruit, and so on ; more buildings than you 

 could count, or would be willing to afflict your eyes with a 

 second time ; a pasture for the cows, one to wean calves in, one 

 for the pigs, and so of all the rest, implying more siding, roof- 

 ing and fencing, than the richest man in town could even dream 

 of being able to keep in repair. It would be a mighty con- 

 venient farm, but ugly enougii to give one the lock-jaw, and 

 absolutely incapable of cultivation, in that form, with a profit. 

 There are some such farms. 



