THE FARMER MUST KNOW. 81 



They arc patent to every eye which can look back fifty years, or 

 which has access to the agricultural literature of the period. 

 Despair of progress is a phrase which should not be found in 

 the dictionary of the farmer. Every tree, leaf, shrub and flower, 

 and all experience of the past, read him a homily on hope, if he 

 will listen to it. 



The old Agricultural Society of Massachusetts, the oldest 

 State society of this kind among us, and second in time only to 

 the Philadelphia Society, was incorporated in 1792, under the 

 name of the " Massachusetts Society for Promoting Agriculture." 

 When I look into the publications of that society, among the 

 members of which I read the names of the greatest and wisest 

 men of the day in our Commonwealth, — when I learn the diffi- 

 culties contended against, the ignorance and prejudices which 

 were to be combatted, — when I consider how much they really 

 performed, — when I compare the agriculture of their day with 

 that of our own, various emotions fill my breast. I am impressed 

 with the sterling merit of the men and the worth of their 

 contributions to the cause of American agriculture. I am 

 impressed, too, with the changes which fifty years have brought 

 with them, and with the value of our agricultural literature, 

 scanty as it is. Above all, I am impressed with tli^ grand 

 motives to labor and perseverance in this great cause. I read 

 on every page of those publications lessons of encouragement 

 and hope. When I reflect on the lights which science has since 

 set up to conduct the practical agriculturist on his way, I feel 

 that it would be dishonorable in us to sit doAvn in sluggish 

 content, breathing no prayer and putting forth no hand for the 

 furtherance of a work so intimately connected with the earthly 

 well-being and happiness of man. The cause of agriculture is 

 eminently the cause of humanity. Seven-eighths of the popu- 

 lation of most civilized nations, it is computed, are engaged in 

 it, and it mainly feeds the inhabitants of the globe, estimated at 

 more than a thousand and fifty millions.* 



I have spoken of an acquaintance with books, and especially 

 with the history and science of agriculture, as affording aid and 

 encouragement to the farmer in his own chosen field of labor. 

 I must now allude briefly to some other benefits of intellectual 



* 1,050,139,403. 

 11 



