Address. 



grow. To do this he must be industrious, intelligent and prudent, and to 

 secure more than a bare subsistence he needs all the aid which the highest 

 science can afford. 



Notwithstanding the difficulties which beset the farmer in the cooler 

 regions now inhabited by the most civilized nations of the world, the total 

 amount and value of agricultural produce are constantly increasing, and in 

 Great Britain, and doubtless in Massachusetts, this increased product is 

 obtained with a continually diminishing expense, and in many cases with 

 an absolute improvement of the soil. This is the goal toward which a true 

 and perfect system of agriculture should ever be tending — to secure the 

 most desirable and profitable crops with the least expenditure of labor and 

 fertilizers, and, at the same time, to enrich the soil, and enhance the salu- 

 brity of the climate and the beauty of the landscape, The effect of mod- 

 ern improvements applied to estates in England during the present century 

 has been to increase their annual value many fold. This result has been 

 attained by thorough tillage, clean culture, under-draining, rotation of 

 crops, cultivation of roots, improved methods of saving and applying ma- 

 nures, use of commercial fertilizers, and proper adaptations of crops to 

 soils and markets, together with the application of horse and steam power 

 to farm work and the invention of many new and useful hand implements ; 

 the irrigation of "water meadows ;" the introduction of better breeds of 

 animals for specific purposes and the diffusion of knowledge upon topics of 

 interest to the fanner. 



In our own Commonwealth the change for the better is almost as mar- 

 velous. How different the appearance of the country to-day from what it 

 was an hundred years ago ! What improvements in the variety and quality 

 of farm and garden products ; in the number and perfection of agricultural 

 implements and machines : in the treatment of swamps and other wild or 

 waste land ; in roads and fences ; in orchards and vineyards ; in the loca. 

 tion and construction of farm buildings ; in the beauty, usefulness and 

 value, and the care and breeding of domestic animals ; in the saving and 

 appreciating of fertilizers and in general farm management, and above all in 

 the intelligence and eagerness for progress of the farmers themselves. This 

 increased mental activity and desire for information is clearly indicated by 

 the enormous sales of agricultural books of every description, and the al- 

 most incredible circulation of agricultural periodicals, which have come into 

 existence within a comparatively few years. 



Not only have the out door labors of the farm been rendered much 

 lighter, more agreeable, and more profitable by these modern betterments 

 and inventions, but the household duties of the farmer's wife and daughters 



