2 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



this very soil, those facts have been gathered, wliich are impor- 

 tant to the daily life of every man wlio dwells upon this same cor- 

 ner of the earth, and under this same arch of the sky. Could 

 those men, who, when this society was formed, felt that a clay 

 farm was a reproach and a stumbling block to agriculture, — 

 whose chiefest agricultural skill consisted in selecting the 

 choicest soils, — whose knowledge of manures extended hardly 

 beyond their own barnyards, — whose surface drainage destroyed 

 the symmetry of their "meadows and fields," — whose machinery 

 consisted in the intelligence and untiring industry of the farm 

 labor of those days, and whose success in agriculture in spite 

 of all obstacles, should teach us a most encouraging lesson ; 

 could those men have pondered over the record of under-drain- 

 ing and deep ploughing, — could they have studied the experi- 

 ments made with all the fertilizers which sea and land have 

 furnished from their ample stores, — could they have learned how 

 labor may be lightened and all farming operations be facilitated 

 by labor saving machines, — could their thoughts have been 

 stimulated and instructed by the records of this society, if by 

 nothing more, would not the dark corners in which they were 

 groping have been filled with the light of noon-day ? 



For I look upon an agricultural society as in the highest 

 sense an agricultural school, in which all are teachers, and all 

 are pupils. And in this lies its most important duty. The 

 best professor of agricultural chemistry, is he who comes em- 

 browned from the compost heap, which by judicious application 

 has forced a hundred bushels of corn from each of his well cul- 

 tivated acres. The best teacher of the art of tilling the soil, 

 is he who has by long experience become acquainted with the 

 habits of plants, from their tenderest infancy to the ripened 

 harvest. The best expounder of agricultiiral truths is he who 

 has learned by diligence and perseverance, with a liberal and 

 inquiring mind, what those economies are which give success 

 to the farmer. The best farmer is he, who while he becomes 

 intimate with the laws of nature, and learns her mysteries so 

 far as she will reveal them, has a quick eye for those useful 

 discoveries and inventions which the ingenuity of man is con- 

 stantly laying at the feet of agriculture. And herein lies the 

 great end of agricultural education, get it where you will, from 



