70 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



things and then doing them. Let me give an illustration of 

 farm management. One man whom I knew bought a farm, 

 and ran in debt for one-half the purchase price and for teams 

 and tools to stock it. His neighbor said, " It was too bad, for 

 he would lose all his hard-earned money invested in the farm." 

 When he moved to the farm his neighbors watched him. He 

 first made a small barnyard. His cows were kept there nights, 

 and the first thing in the jnorning, with a shovel, he gathered 

 the droppings and put them on the compost heap. His neigh- 

 bors said, " Well, that is all we want to see. If he is to pay 

 for that farm he must grow crops and sell them, and not 

 bother around in that way." It was a bother to this man to 

 collect those droppings ; then he must bother to take them to 

 the field and scatter them ; and his bother did not cease there, 

 for. other things being equal, from the first year that man 

 moved upon the farm he has been bothered with harvesting a 

 larger corn crop, a larger wheat crop and a larger bean crop; 

 and to-<lay he is bothered with a first-class farm, has educated 

 his children and has money in the bank. He succeeded. 



Another man, not far away, has his farm given to him. He 

 did not believe in bothering, l^o manure was ever collected 

 unless it had to be to get it out of the way. At one time it 

 looked to him to be cheaper to move the barn than to move the 

 manure, so he moved the barn. He did not believe in being 

 bothered, j^ature helped him. Other things being equal, 

 he was bothered a little less each year, and his crops were light^ 

 and he did not have to bother so much to harvest them. To- 

 day he is not liothered at nil with a farm. The mortgage took 

 it and he mo\'ed away. There were two systems of farm man- 

 agement. The one system led to success ; the other to failure. 



Some of you will argue that I have told you nothing new, 

 and I think this is true. I did not come to Massachusetts with 

 the idea of telling you a lot of new things, but I did hope that 

 from our reasoning together we might all return to our homes 

 and farms with a little renewed incentive and inspiration t(^ 

 do our farm work better. It is not so necessary for farmers 

 to know a lot of new things, but to do as well as they al- 

 ready know. I asked a minister once if he called his con- 

 gregation together every Sunday morning to tell them a new 



