Address. 



On the contrary, in the good time coming, the refining, elevating, and 

 strengthening influences of high intellectual and aesthetic culture will be 

 considered as desirable in the agricultural profession, as they are in medi- 

 cine, law or theology. 



It is, however, an indisputable fact that the farmers even of Massachu- 

 setts to-day, with a few exceptions, fail almost utterly to appreciate the 

 importance of professional or scientific education for their sons, and feel 

 far less respect than they ought for their business. Washington declared 

 this to be "the most useful, the most healthy and the most noble occupa- 

 tion of man," and followed it, so far as his public duties would allow, with 

 energy and ability. Yet there are multitudes on our farms, who will make 

 far greater sacrifices to send their sons to a classical college, or establish 

 them in some branch of trade or manufacture, than they will to prepare 

 them in the best manner to become influential and prosperous in the pro- 

 fession of their fathers. 



A celebrated painter having been asked with what he mixed his colors 

 to render them so perfect, is said to have answered, "brains." The most 

 difficult and most complicated of the arts, also requires brains in him who 

 would master and improve it. Accordingly we find agriculture most wisely 

 and properly conducted, where nature is not too lavish of her favors, but 

 where the circumstances of soil and climate compel men to the exercise of 

 forethought and diligence. In favorable situations within the tropics the 

 support of a family requires an exceedingly small amount of labor and 

 skill. Clothing is almost a superfluity, and food springs from the earth in 

 constant and luxuriant profusion. Thus the plantain, which is the staff of 

 life in some equatorial regions, yields one hundred and thirty-three times 

 as much food to the acre as the wheat plant, and needs scarcely any culti- 

 vation or care. It is only necessary to renew the plantation once in twenty 

 years, so that the principal labor consists in picking the fruit, which grows 

 within thirty feet of the ground. The plantain is nutritious and healthful 

 in a great variety of forms, and is eaten both ripe and unripe, cooked and 

 uncooked, and in the dry as well as the fresh state. The cocoa-nut, date 

 and sago palms furnish food, drink and clothing, almost as readily as the 

 plantain does food. 



IIow unlike this is the agriculture of Massachusetts with her rough and 

 sterile soil and her severe climate, demanding a constant and vigorous strug- 

 gle with both the burning heat of summer and the icy blasts of winter ! 

 With anxious care the farmer must provide during the few brief months, 

 when there are no frosts, for the maintenance and shelter of his family and 

 his domestic animals during half the year, when no food of any kind will 



