46 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



of business. But few fail. Farmers are not parties in the 

 Insolvent Courts ; they do not gain so rapidly as some do in 

 other business, but surely and steadily. A famine never stares 

 you in the face ; you can live upon the productions of your own 

 soil, independent of every-body. Your farm is a fortune, it is a 

 home, however small, and many of our farmers would farm it 

 more profitably if their farms were smaller. We find in history 

 that when a country becomes densely populated, when necessity 

 requires that the land should all be cultivated, and well culti- 

 vated, then we find that small farms are made to produce more 

 than large farms do in our country, wliere our vast territories 

 extend from ocean to ocean. If the land in the town of Adams 

 was all tillage land, and should all be cultivated and made to 

 produce as land in England has done, it might be made to main- 

 tain one hundred thousand people ; for Goldsmith has told us, in 

 one of his beautiful poems, that 



"The time was once, ere England's griefs began, 

 When every rood of ground maintained its man." 



I do not suppose that they lived extravagantly, or fared 

 sumptuously every day, but they were s\ipplied with the neces- 

 saries of life. They lived well, contented and happy. 



Scarcity of land drives people to a good cultivation of it. 

 And to you, who own small farms, remember that your little 

 farm, well cultivated, will be more profitable than a large farm 

 poorly managed. Never enlarge your farm till you liave fully 

 mastered what you have — know its capacity — test the strength 

 of it. I am aware that it requires territory for pasture, but one 

 acre of good pasture may be worth four acres of poor ; one acre 

 of meadow land, with two crops, may produce more than four 

 acres of poor meadow, and perhaps more than ten acres. The 

 profits of a farm are not always estimated by the number of 

 acres ; for, I think I can point out small farms that actually pro- 

 duce more profit to the owner than other farms, of three times 

 the quantity of land. I do not claim but that some of our 

 largest farms are well cultivated, for they are : our largest 

 farmers are often our best farmers. But if scarcity of land 

 compelled them to occupy smaller farms, they might pcrliaps 

 farm it as profitably as they now do. 



