Address. 21 



special and relates to this calling alone. The pursuits of many of our 

 people lead them to deal with dead matter, over which they have 

 nearly supreme control. Give to the cotton or woolen manufacturer 

 a pound of cotton or wool, and he can tell you to an inch how much 

 yarn or cloth it will make. He can tell you to a mill how much it 

 will cost to manufacture it. The reason is, his machinery works 

 with unvarying precision, and he controls all the circumstances of 

 success. Not so the farmer. His occupation, when he possesses the 

 highest intelligence, will have much about it that is uncertain and 

 precarious, for his success depends largely on those elemental and 

 natural laws over which he has little control. How absolutely es- 

 sential it is, then, that he should be thoroughly versed in all those 

 great underlying principles which relate to the soil, its combinations, 

 its chemical and mechanical changes, the processes by which plant food 

 is created, and carried away. The laws which relate to and govern 

 the life, growth, and perfection of the animals and plants of the 

 farm. Be qualified by training and discipline to think out, discover 

 and systematize the great truths of his profession, and thus to wring 

 success out of circumstances which would dishearten the ignorant, as 

 well as a most thorough practical knowledge of all the minutiae of 

 the pursuit, and acquaintance with the principles of business which 

 will enable him to meet on equal' ground all the sharp competitions 

 of this competing age. When the men who own and superintend the 

 working of the soil of Massachusetts shall be thus disciplined and 

 educated ; when they adopt a system of cultivation which inures to 

 its gradual improvement, concentrate their energies and intelligence 

 on the production of such special articles as their location demands, 

 then, and only then, will they reap the benefits that may be derived 

 from the home market of our dense and increasing population, and 

 complaints of agriculture as an occupation cease, and we shall 

 occupy the position, by universal consent, which is ours by virtue of 

 our intrinsic importance to the Commonwealth. 



