No. 4.] liUliAL BETTERMENT. 15 



Up-to-Date Methods. 

 An important matter in rural betterment is the adoption 

 of progressive, up-to-date methods. If there is a farm in 

 New England of good soil workable by machinery that is 

 not producing as good crops as ever in the past, it is because 

 it has been improperly handled. There is no more reason 

 for this class of farms wearing out than for roads wearing 

 out. When a person runs in debt for a farm and pays for it 

 in eight years from legitimate farming, and puts $10,000 in 

 the savings bank, and another person in the same neighbor- 

 hood with the same kind of a farm allows it to be taken by 

 the mortgagee within four years ; when one person in a 

 neighborhood doubles the production of his farm in four years 

 from the resources of the farm, and another allows the prod- 

 ucts to deteriorate 50 per cent in the same time ; when one 

 person makes 110,000 in ten years breeding and selling cat- 

 tle upon a remote New England farm, and another loses a 

 like amount that he inherited in the same business in the 

 same time, — there is evidence of some other fault with 

 farming than imfavorable natural conditions. There is not 

 an acre of productive soil in New England that cannot be 

 worked at a profit if progressive, up-to-date methods are 

 practised. One of the chief reasons for decline in agricul- 

 ture in the past was the failure to change methods in accord 

 with changed conditions. There is now a strong tendency 

 towards New England farms with the adoption of modern 

 methods of farming. The science of agriculture is becom- 

 ing rapidly established, and its application to the cultivation 

 and fertilization of the soil, to the breedino- and feedinsf of 

 animals, to the suppression of insect diseases and fungous 

 pests and to handling and storing farm products, is already 

 working a revelation in agriculture that will be far-reaching 

 in results. It is our duty to recognize and promote this 

 matter, in the interest of rural betterment. 



The Summer Business. 



The rural sections of New England are peculiarly adapted 

 to the establishment of summer homes ; and during the past 

 ten years I have given my best thought and most earnest 



