2 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



he has one governing thought, one aim, and to that every thing 

 is suhordinate. From the first, every thing tends to give him 

 a full and clear idea of liis chosen business, its duties and its 

 difficulties, and what he must do to secure its amplest rewards 

 and achieve its highest triumphs. 



Now, how is it with the education of farmers ? There are 

 exceptions, of course, but not enough to disturb the general 

 rule. Tlie farmer sends his son to the village school, where he 

 learns to read and write and cipher. He is set to do the light 

 chores about home, until, gaining in strength, he is ])ut to 

 harder tasks. As he grows up, he learns to plant, to mow, to 

 harvest, to perform the ordinary work of the farm, but only in 

 the way he sees his father perform these labors. He may or 

 may not observe the rotation of crops, the application of partic- 

 ular fertilizers, the production of certain results, but if he does, 

 he knows not, thinks not, of the reason of the thing. To all 

 intents and purposes, he is performing a mere mechanical task. 

 Whether or not he is to be a farmer, whether that is to be the 

 business of his life, remains undetermined. Neither he nor his 

 father have come to any settled understanding upon this. Like 

 Mr. IMicawbcr, he is waiting for something to turn up, — some 

 opportunity to go to the city, to go to sea, to go into trade, — 

 but all the time with mind unfixed, with no clear purposes, no 

 distinct aims. If he remains upon the farm and becomes a 

 farmer, the chances are that he does it from the force of circum- 

 stances, and because that seems to be the only resource left 

 him, and not from choice. And then he goes on as he began, 

 and as his father has gone before him. Now what is needed is, 

 and it is of j)rimary importance, that the young novitiate for 

 farming should be trained to his business, with the understand- 

 ing from the first that it is to be his business — one in which he 

 is to earn his living and acquire a competency ; one in which, 

 from the start, he shall be spurred on by the laudable ambition 

 to excel and make his mark. Why should there not be in this 

 the same method and system as in other employments ? Why 

 should he not begin with the idea which is to control his course, 

 so that every effort and every experience may be made to tell 

 in his general education and to bear upon final results ? The 

 boy upon the farm, who is to be a farmer, when he has had the 

 proper rudimentary education of the schools, should commence 



