6 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



others, is yet tlie result of discipline, and can be cultivated and 

 acquired by all, — which is as necessary upon the farm as in the 

 office or workshop, and the practice or neglect of which maybe, 

 and often is, the turning point between success and failure. 



In this connection, a word upon the keeping of accounts 

 would not seem to be out of place. I do not speak now of farm 

 accounts, technically so called, — the account which every farmer 

 should keep with every department of his farm, without which 

 it is impossible to calculate the most beneficial mode of its man- 

 agement, and the improvements of which it is susceptible, and 

 which is just as important to him as to the merchant or manu- 

 facturer are their complicated books. And yet, if there were 

 time, it would be a profitable theme. For illustration, suppose 

 a farmer should say to his son who is training to succeed him, 

 " Here, take this lot of land, cultivate it, experiment upon it, 

 do with it and what you get from it as you please, but keep a 

 strict account with it, and from year to year, see not only what 

 you have learned of farming, but liow stands the matter of profit 

 and loss. To say nothing of what an incentive this would be to 

 effort, what a spur to youthful ambition, how better could the 

 young man be taught prudence and thrift, while at the same 

 time he was gaining golden knowledge of his art ? And thus 

 from this one lot let the same system be applied to all, to the 

 whole farm, whenever he comes to have one of his own. But I 

 w^as referring to the subject in a more limited view, to the 

 accounts wliich a farmer should keep of his pecuniary transac- 

 tions — of his bargains, and purchases, and sales, his dealings 

 with the world. I feel that I have a right to speak of this with 

 some degree of confidence, because it is a matter witli which 

 my own professional experience has made me somewhat familiar. 

 I have known instances, and they have not been infrequent, 

 where a farmer, forced to go into court, has been unable to 

 prove an honest demand, simply from his inability to produce 

 an account-book which would meet the easy requirements of the 

 law, and who, besides losing his case, and having to payaheavy 

 bill of costs to his fraudulent debtor, has gone home mortified 

 at the tliought that his neighbors would believe he was in the 

 w^rong and his opponent in the right. The looseness which 

 prevails in this matter strikes every lawyer with astonishment. 

 The usual apology made is, that a farmer's dealings are mainly 



