6Q MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



INTELLECT IN FARMING. 



From an Address before the Hoosac Valley Agricultural Society. 



BY ALEXANDER HYDE. 



While we are ready to concede to other occupations all the 

 honor that is their due, we still maintain that farming lies at 

 the foundation, and it is eminently proper that on this festival 

 day of farmers we should endeavor to magnify the calling which 

 Adam pursued, and in which the majority of Adam's posterity 

 are and ever will be engaged. We know that it is customary 

 on these occasions to say smooth things to the farmers, to call 

 them the landlords, the sturdy yeomanry, the backbone of 

 society. This may all be very true. I yield to none in re- 

 spect for my chosen occupation, and to the staid, reliable 

 character of the great majority of the tillers of the soil ; but 

 I see so many defects in my own management, such a wide 

 margin for improvement, so much still to be learned in the 

 theory and practice of agriculture, that I do not propose any 

 flattering unction, but rather to point out some defects in our 

 present system and make some suggestions for improvement. 

 The New England farmer already holds a proud position among 

 the agriculturists of the earth. Foreigners who come here to 

 study our institutions and customs are struck with admiration 

 of the comfortable homes, the intelligence, industry, enterprise 

 and virtue of the yeomanry of the Eastern States. Lord Mor- 

 peth, when in this country a few years since, remarked that 

 " the farmers were the true nobility of this country. They 

 live like princes. Their houses, equipage, dress, manners and 

 conversation indicate nobility." This was the conclusion to 

 which he came after visiting some of the No. 1 class of farmers. 

 Possibly after knowing some of the second and third rate he 

 might have questioned the nobility of some of us ; but there 



