68 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



yield tenfold beyond her pristine efforts ; and as the marts of 

 industry narrow the quantity of land, the quality shall so in- 

 crease as to more than compensate for such withdrawal. New 

 England churches, ministers, schools, teachers, doctors and law- 

 yers have exerted their due influence over the whole continent ; 

 and it is so far from being exhausted that the cry is still for 

 more ; and our pulpits, professional and scientific chairs are be- 

 ing continually emptied at the cry of give, give, send, send, from 

 the exhaustless maw of the West. The next cry will be for sci- 

 entific agriculturists who shall repair the broken ways of the 

 hasty forerunners, and enable the populations who have stripped 

 the surface of its richness, as their ancestors the rings from the 

 ears and noses of the aborigines, to restore the land by the im- 

 provements in agricultural practice, which alone can enable them 

 to compete with foreign prices, or even produce enough for the 

 adequate support of the millions so soon to dot the whole regions 

 on which now range the Indian, the bison, and the caravan of 

 the emigrant. 



But whilst we are ready to admit that agriculture is a funda- 

 mental source of our national prosperity ; that the wearing out 

 of land in the older and Western States is a matter of serious 

 concern ; that a remedy is needed ; many are disposed to ques- 

 tion the propriety of considering agriculture as a science that 

 can act with precision and be moulded into shape, form and con- 

 tinued progress, but rather like a pile of bricks of different sorts 

 and sizes, from which all can take and shape such fabric as each 

 individual mind conceives, and then instead of one uniform struc- 

 ture we have thousands of incomplete, incongruous ones. But 

 look further and see some master builder whose sagacity and 

 skill are equal to the task of selection, and constructing a sym- 

 metrical edifice, and you will realize that the fault is our own, 

 not that of the material, if the structure is not as it should be. 



But you say, agriculture is uncertain in its results, dependhig 

 upon the nature of the soil, the character of the climate, the at- 

 mosphere, and seasons, as well as instruments of culture, to pro- 

 duce its best effects, or any improved effect at all. How can it 

 be a science adapted to man's capabilities, and upon which he 

 can rely to restore the neglected soils and make the barren de- 

 sert blossom like the rose ? Agricultural science is empirical, 

 experimental, and so are the acknowledged sciences of medicine, 



