OPPORTUNITIES OF THE PARMER. • 65 



ing together, would be to resolve ourselves into a model town- 

 meeting, with a president and presidentress, and give the sub- 

 stance of our doings during the year, and then compare notes 

 and strike the balance in favor of those who have served the 

 Lord as faithfully when planting, manuring and hoeing, as when 

 singing hallelujahs, and whose handiwork bespeaks His and their 

 praise. But for the same reason that the ancient Wittenage- 

 motes or assemblies of the whole people have to give way to the 

 modern contrivances of Parliaments and Legislatures, in which 

 the few represent the many, on this occasion we are forced to put 

 up with a substitute, or representative, whose endeavor will be 

 to hold up your hands in the good work, and set before you some 

 of the privileges and responsibilities, as well as opportunities of 

 farming in New England. 



" What a poor cuss the man must be who owns this farm," 

 said a traveller, as he rode past an immensely neglected one. 

 " Not so poor as you think," exclaimed a voice from a head 

 which peeped out over the wall, " I only own one-half of it !" 

 This anecdote might have been plastered on to a good many 

 farms, even in Berkshire County, in Watson's time, but since then 

 wherever it has paid to farm well, cultivation has advanced, and 

 a man is not ashamed to own a whole farm in any settled part 

 of New England, and the brains must be wanting where some 

 use cannot be made of all the arable and woodland, and a profit 

 realized in the multiplication of animals, the sale of butter, 

 cheese or milk, the distribution of vegetables and small fruits in 

 our manufacturing towns, the supplying of beef and lambs to 

 the butchers, hay and grain to the villages, cream to the hotels* 

 and in other ways converting not only potatoes, but all the prod- 

 uce of the soil into human nature, for a consideration. We 

 have ceased to have a bee for the purpose of removing into the 

 neighboring stream the manure incumbering our farm-yards, 

 and our system of enriching the land is no longer comparable to 

 the farmer's cider which was so weak that the drinker asked him 

 how many barrels he made last year, and on being told fifteen, 

 replied : " If you had had another apple you could have made 

 another barrel !" 



The old prejudices and superstitions — which, like rats in a trap, 

 get into men's minds easily, but find a great difficulty in getting 

 out — against " high farming," including in that phrase the best 



