78 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



called an agricultural literature, embracing not simply the 

 results of scientific research and analysis, by such men as Sir 

 Humphrey Davy, Liebig, Johnston and others, great benefac- 

 tors to the cause of agriculture, but the teachings of experi- 

 ence also, for the benefit of those who have no reverence for the 

 demonstrations of science, believing them to be all moonshine, — 

 of no more worth than a fog-bank for anchorage. We have in 

 the Transactions and reports of societies and boards of agricul- 

 ture, and the various agricultural journals, some of them very 

 carefully edited, a sort of history of what is doing, and wliat 

 has been done, to subdue wild nature and turn the earth into a 

 garden. These alone furnish to the farmer much useful read- 

 ing, which, besides its direct effect on practice, will serve to 

 stimulate the mind, and help those who labor to labor in a hope- 

 ful, trusting spirit, which, next to intelligence, is what is most 

 needed — labor in a trusting, hopeful spirit. 



The friends of agriculture have been sometimes ready to 

 despond, in view of the slow progress of the art of cultivating 

 the soil, and the difficulty of introducing new ideas and new 

 modes of culture ; practical agriculturists, as a body, being, it 

 is asserted, "more opposed to change than any other large 

 class of the community." And yet the history of agriculture, 

 for the last half or three-quarters of a century, will show great 

 and substantial progress. If it be true, that men have been 

 slow to adopt changes in modes of tillage and articles of food, 

 it is equally true that perseverance has in the end conquered. 

 I will take an illustration from the history of that common 

 vegetable, the potato, for the time blighted, but not lost, Tliis, 

 as all know, is indigenous to the western continent, and I will 

 allude to the difficulty of its introduction into Europe as an 

 article of food for man, simply for the purpose of showing how 

 much may be accomplished by earnest and patient effort. It 

 has been supposed, erroneously, I believe, that Sir Walter 

 Raleigh first carried this vegetable from Virginia to Europe, 

 about the end of the sixteenth century. It is a native, how- 

 ever, of Soutli America, and was earlier known to the Spaniards, 

 who were probably its first importers into the old world. It 

 met vwith a various reception in different parts of Europe. As 

 early as 1587 potatoes were common in Italy, where they were 

 used as food for cattle. The natives of the " Green Isle," 



