SECRETARY'S REPORT. 99 



of time and increase of expense. System has chief reference 

 to succession of crops, to sufficiency of hands, and their appli- 

 cation to labor, and to selection of instruments. 



As to succession of crops called rotation, the more common 

 practice is after two or three years' cultivation to get the land 

 into grass. Rotation as practiced in England has not generally 

 been adopted here. Systematic agriculture also requires suffi- 

 ciency of hands ; whatever call of farming any man undertakes 

 to fill, hands enough to do it well are essential. Although this 

 is a plain dictate of common sense, yet the want of being 

 guided by it in practice, is one great cause of ill success in 

 agriculture. Labor as such never yet diminished any man's 

 profit ; on the contrary, it is the root and spring of all profit. 

 Labor unwisely directed and unskilfully managed is indeed a 

 great consumer of the farmer's prosperity. But labor wisely 

 and skilfully directed, can, from the nature of things, result in 

 nothing else than profit. What is skilful management and 

 what is wise direction of labor, opens a field almost boundless, 

 and not to be attempted in this connection ; a single remark 

 must suffice. The great secret of European success in agri- 

 culture is stated to be much labor on comparatively little land. 

 Now the whole tenor of Massachusetts husbandry, from the first 

 settlement of the country, has been little labor on much land. 

 Is it wonderful, then, that success should be little or nothing 

 when conduct is in direct violation of the principle on which 

 success depends ? 



The wastes proceeding from the want of system in arranging 

 work, or in improper appropriation of the forces of the farm, 

 although when viewed in individual effect seem small, are very 

 large in the aggregate. The nature of this subject, however, 

 precludes us from making any thing but general remarks, 

 leaving every farmer to act as the occasion demands. Every 

 farmer to be successful should have well-matured plans for 

 performing every operation connected witli his business. He 

 can never hope to be successful who goes to work at random. 

 A successful farmer will be a thinking man, always knowing in 

 advance what his operations are to be ; when the time comes to 

 act, he will be prepared. He will not, for instance, send 

 thoughtlessly two men to do what one could as well accom- 

 plish alone. There is much skill to be exercised in arranging 



