164 MASSACAUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



vidual research and experiment be brought to the knowledge of 

 the whole society. 



Our farmers have the strongest inducements to develop the 

 entire capabilities of the soil. For most of them own their 

 farms, and hope to leave them to their children. Here is a 

 motive to intelligent and persistent efforts to show a more 

 thorough union of learning and practical skill, to be followed 

 by a more abundant reward. But this result cannot be attained 

 so long as we believe that we are born with all the knowledge 

 necessary to a successful prosecution of our art, or so long as 

 we neglect the study of principles and the application of them 

 to our business. We must not only consider our art as among 

 the most honorable, but follow it in the same spirit that leads to 

 success in other employments. 



In concluding this report, the committee would repeat the 

 expression of satisfaction which their visits to the farmers of the 

 county have occasioned, and the assurance that in many essential 

 elements of good husbandry the cultivators of the soil are 

 making a decided, and in some cases, a rapid progress. We 

 invite the attention of young and enterprising men to the busi- 

 ness of agriculture. We believe tliat persistent industry, guided 

 by such intelligence as is within the reach of all, w^ill be amply 

 rewarded even in Norfolk county. The reason of our belief is 

 found in the fact, that there are already in the county hundreds 

 of beautiful farms, on which are living happy and prosperous 

 families, surrounded by as many blessings, liable to as few 

 troubles as are allotted to men in this world. 

 In behalf of the committee, 



J. M. Merrick. 



Statement of C. C. Se^vall. 



My farm embraces about seventy acres in the homestead, and 

 twenty acres of pasture, orchard and meadow land abroad. 

 When it camo into my possession, — fourteen years ago, — I had 

 to cultivate and manage it witliout any previous knowledge of 

 the art, but such as observation and general reading had 

 afforded, and without the facilities and means for fertiliziiig 

 and improving it, which its former owner possessed. And here 



