104 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



nothing, perhaps, can be well urged. But stock fed on early- 

 cut and well-cured English hay, such as is wont to follow pre- 

 mium crops of roots or cereals, seldom needs special treatment 

 for promoting an appetite ; and in the fact that so large a pro- 

 portion of the stock in the State is fed on such hay, and on 

 grain and roots, is to be found one cause of the improving con- 

 dition of soTiie of the land used for agricultural purposes, and 

 of the increase of agricultural products, notwithstanding the 

 constant decrease in the number of acres of what the valuation 

 committee would denote as " improved land." Well-fed stock 

 and well-manured land act reciprocally, as cause and effect, 

 each affecting the other, and being in turn affected by it. 



It is not uncommon to hear agriculturists of a certain class 

 spoken of as " fancy farmers," the term being applied to those 

 who devote only their money to agricultural operations, in con- 

 tradistinction from those who depend mainly upon their own 

 personal labor for success, and who are termed practical farm- 

 ers. But the time may come when we, who are compelled to 

 " farm it " without capital, may recognize the so-called fancy 

 farmers as the salt of the earth, in their influence upon its agri- 

 culture. From their theories, many of them absurd and chi- 

 merical, from their experiments, many of them ill-conducted 

 and unsatisfactory, and from their earnest discussion of topics 

 once supposed to have very little if any connection with practi- 

 cal farming, has proceeded, in great measure, the admitted ad- 

 vancement in agriculture as a science, followed by a partial 

 awakening of the community to the necessity of popularizing 

 agricultural industry, as lying at the foundation of national 

 prosperity. Through their efforts knowledge has been increased 

 and disseminated, and the most practical of farmers have been 

 led to make great changes in the methods and appliances of 

 their vocation. But, aside from the indirect influence which 

 the class of whom we are speaking exert upon the opinions and 

 practices of the mass of farmers, their opinions are in them- 

 selves directly and eminently practical. The fact is patent to 

 all observers, that, on very many farms, not only are permanent 

 improvements wholly neglected, but that even the conservatism, 

 which would, at least, keep things as they are, is very far from 

 being generally apparent ; that mowing lands are given over to 

 pasturage, and pastures suffered to grow to wood and bushes ; 



