98 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



this great extent to secure what might be garnered from a tithe 

 of it, the profit and pleasure must be far less. The social privi- 

 leges are also greater where the cultivation is so perfect, that a 

 dense population can be sustained. Our Southern friends could 

 have few churches and no system of common schools, because 

 their plantations were too large. The farms in Berkshire County, 

 vary from ten to twelve hundred acres, will probably average 

 one hundred, and if the average was reduced to fifty, twice as 

 many families could be supported ; and it is men and women, 

 not land and cattle, that give value to a place. 



Again, good land does not necessarily imply good farm man- 

 agement. The Great Creator distributed fertility among lands, 

 much as he did talents among men, and the perfection of farm 

 management is to make the soil produce all that, and just that 

 it is capable of producing, as the perfection of education con- 

 sists in developing all the faculties of the mind. The old say- 

 ing is, " You can't make a whistle out of a pig's tail," and in 

 like manner we cannot make vineyards nor grain farms out of 

 some of our mountain lands, but grass can be made to grow 

 where grain will not, and he that makes the most out of a graz- 

 ing farm, deserves credit equally with him who cultivates the 

 alluvial meadow. We have the authority of Dr. Seelye for say- 

 ing that a whistle has been made from a pig's tail, but whoever 

 makes one, pays dear for his whistle, and there are lands which 

 do not pay for cultivation, and in such cases we should consider 

 it good management to let them revert to forest. 



Neither does the hoarding of money from the products of the 

 soil necessarily involve good farming. Money is a good thing, 

 but manhood is better, and he that skims his farm and keeps his 

 family on skim milk, that he may lay up money for heirs he 

 knows not whom, or that he may be considered rich, is not a 

 good farmer, but he is simply a poor, rich, fool. A great mistake 

 with many farmers, is not to invest on their farms their surplus 

 earnings. The manufacturer grows rich by improving his ma- 

 chinery and extending his business, and the farmer should grow 

 rich by the increased value, and sometimes by the increased ex- 

 tent of his land. At all events, this world was never made for 

 a great savings bank, and making money is not the great test of 

 success in agriculture. Columella, a distinguished agriculturist 

 among the old Romans, gave his countrymen this sage advice. 



