32 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



having the keenest eyes for good land. Frequently, generally, 

 the outlying lands fell to those who were least capable of 

 managing them, and they have become exhausted by negligent 

 culture. Until farming lands are quite valuable, nature can 

 restore them more economically by a growth of wood than 

 they can be restored by human skill or labor. 



Fortunately for New Englaud, we have for many years 

 been surrendering our exhausted pastures and worn-out farms 

 to the forests. Forests upon the tops and sides of hills and 

 mountains are a certain source of moisture and nourishment 

 to the fields below ; they increase the quantity of rainfall ; 

 they add to the beauty of the landscape ; they check the 

 sudden flow of water to the valleys in the spring freshets, and 

 they diminish the severity of the droughts in the summer and 

 autumn. 



Secondly, farming is becoming more and more an intel- 

 lectual pursuit, and the aggregation of farmers in the villages 

 is almost a necessary condition of progress. Not only are the 

 children better trained in schools, but the men and women are 

 insensibly educated by contact with each other, and especially 

 are the men prepared for the successful prosecution of their 

 business by conversation, by lectures, and by club meetings, 

 which are now common among the farmers of Massachusetts. 

 As the villages multiply in number and increase in size, the 

 deserted lands may be again cultivated, and occasionally they 

 will be purchased in large estates and devoted to raising 

 cattle and grain. The tendency at present is clearly in the 

 right direction. 



I venture the suggestion that agriculture in Massachusetts, 

 including market-gardening and fruit-raising, depends chiefly 

 upon our capacity to gain and keep the lead in the applica- 

 tion of scientific knowledge. In beef, pork, and mutton, in 

 the culture of the grains, in the products of the dairy, we 

 are in competition with the North-West and the West, even to 

 California ; while in horticulture and vegetables we are in 

 competition with the Bermudas and the coasts of the United 

 States, even to the tropical savannas of Florida. This is a 

 serious competition, a perpetual competition. Railways and 

 steamships have contributed to the growth — rapid growth — of 

 cities and towns, but they have widened the field of compcti- 



