PAYS TO APPLY SCIENCE. 75 



means, and thus fail of success, because they lack the conditions 

 of success. But the work is before us and enough has been 

 done to greatly encourage us. Seeing these obstacles in our 

 way, we are not to hesitate, but only to meet them wisely. It 

 is the business of all who believe in scientific agriculture to 

 secure in their own State the best conditions for its progress, and 

 to labor especially to convince the young men of our time of 

 the study they must give to this subject, if they would become 

 worthy of the name of scientific farmers. I hope to see the day 

 when some of the best scientific observers, the best educated 

 men in all respects in Massachusetts and Wisconsin, will be 

 found on farms. 



And now, gentlemen of the Board of Agriculture, I can but 

 congratulate you that you have done so much to promote the 

 progress of agriculture in the past. Some of you have gained 

 a wide renown for the improvements you have secured. You 

 know well the time, the thought, the care such improvements 

 cost. You know how futile it is for a man without training 

 and without the means and time at his command to enter upon 

 any course of experiments with any hope of reaching results 

 that can be relied upon. We have too many carelessly conduct- 

 ed experiments recorded already. Knowing all this and having 

 in my opinion better conditions for securing the rapid progress 

 of scientific agriculture than any other body of men in this 

 country, it is my hope and expectation that the Massachusetts 

 Board of Agriculture and the Massachusetts Agricultural Col- 

 lege will overcome every obstacle in their way and go on with 

 renewed energy in the good work in which they are engaged. 



Massachusetts cannot produce such fields of wheat and corn 

 as are found in the great West, of which we all boast ; but the 

 soil of Massachusetts gives a generous return for good cultivation, 

 and the high prices which her products command at home en- 

 courage the farmer to seek for every improvement. It pays for 

 him to apply science to the farm. Let Massachusetts then hold 

 the same proud position among those who are now engaging in 

 this onward movement in agricultural science tliat she ever has 

 held in all that relates to learning and the best interests of the 

 human family. 



