MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



•what he has done from day to day, and from year to year. It 

 is tliis systematic management, which deveh)ps tlie res-ources of 

 his farm, by making it a matter of care and study — something 

 more than the theatre of tedious and reluctant daily toil. And 

 although success often comes without it, and lailure sometimes 

 comes without it, still it is one of those means which will stim- 

 ulate the farmer to new exertion, and will tend to have a great 

 influence in all his efforts towards prosperity. It is well to know 

 what a crop costs. It is well to know what method produced 

 the best crop. It is well to know what crop is most profitable 

 in every locality. It is well to know how much the farm 

 returns each year. It is well to know what animals can be 

 profitably reared and fed. And all this cannot be known 

 without a faithful and systematic record ; with it, it can be. 

 And this valuable knowledge is one of the rewards which the 

 daily record brings to him who makes it. 



Of the value of this knowledge to others, it seems hardly 

 necessary to speak. It constitutes the most valuable literature 

 of agriculture. The theories and speculations of ingenious 

 thinkers have their attractions, and they may possibly lead to 

 good practical results ; but he who lays before us an actual 

 operation in drainage, he who gives us the results of various 

 modes of ploughing, he who teaches us from experience the best 

 method of fertilization, he who records the piocesses by which 

 his farm has risen from a wilderness into all the luxuriance and 

 profit of successful agriculture, docs more for his fellow-laborer 

 on the land, than all the theorists combined can ever hope to 

 do. He contril)utes genuine wealth to the community in which 

 he lives. He enrolls himself with the Smiths, and Youngs, and 

 Mechis, and Tulls — the teachers and guides of agricultural 

 labor. He alTords that light which will alone guide us through 

 the dark places of farming, and protect us against those tempta- 

 tions which in the shape of new inventions, and condensed fer- 

 tilizers, and recently discovered crops of abundant promise, 

 beset the farmer on every hand, to lead him away from the 

 legitimate pursuit of his calling, and make him a prey to every 

 form of imposture. AVhen we remember that no man can atford 

 to cultivate an acre of land for nothing, or even to resign it to 

 a doubtful experiment one year out of the few allotted him 

 here on earth, should wo not rather learn of him who can tell 



