330 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER 



MXilCHr 87, IXSff: 



REPORT j densely populated parts of the eartli, where some 



On providing for the Jippoinlinent of a Board of\ degree of skilful agriculture is practised, that is 



Btard of Agriculturc,und a Slate Chcmisl, together never visited by famine. 



ivd.'t a Minority Report. 



SiNATF, March 14, 1639. 



The Coiiiniittec on Agriculture to whom was re- 

 ferred an order " to inquire into the expediency of 

 providing l>y law for the appointment of a Board of 

 Agriculture and also for the appointment of a 

 Stiite Chemist" have considered the same and sub- 

 mit the following report. 



It has long been the settled policy of the gov- 

 ernment of Aiassachusetts to encourage agriculture. 

 To foster industry and encourage agriculture was, 

 at the adoption of the Constitution, pointed out as 

 among the important duties of future legislatures, 

 anil perhaps the wisdom of those to whom we are 

 indebted for that instrument, is nowhere morecon- 

 .■ipicuously manifest thnn in enjoining this duty. 

 Of its necessity and the soundness of its policy 

 two of the most powerful nations of Europe pre- 

 sented at that time illustiious e.xarnples. 



Spain with the wealth of the Indies poured into 

 her laj) for successive centuries was becoming poor 

 and fast sinking under her system of letting agri- 

 culture take care of itself. Gathering rich har- 

 vests of gold and silver from the new world, the 

 more valuable and enduring harvests of domestic in- 

 dustry were neglected and forgotten, and gilded 

 pauperism and splendid degradation were the fast 

 appearing legitimate fruits ; evincing the justice of 

 an over-ruling power, whether considered as the 

 result of idleness at home, or avenging retribution 

 for national treachery and injustice abroad. 



On the other hand, the policy of England was 

 of an opposite character and producing opposite 



Although as an art, agriculture is coeval with 

 our race ; as a science it is yet in its infancy, and 

 opens an extensive firld for discovery and improve- 

 ment It may be reduced to principles as C'rtain 

 as those of almost any other science, by carefully 

 collecting the results of similar combinations of 

 circumstances. 



Science has shed its light freely and abundantly 

 upon other interests, and cannot its rays be brought 

 to bear more directly and fully upon that of agri- 

 culture .' It should hssi-t the hands that guide the 

 plougiishare and pruning-hook, as well as those 

 that hold the tiller or drive the shuttle. 



The production of an ear of grain or a blade of 

 grass is as much the effect of cause, as is the ex- 

 plosion of a steam engine, and although the con- 

 nection between cause and effect may not be as 

 easily traced in one case as in the other, its exist- 

 ence is no less certain ; nor is its investigation less 

 a proper subject for scientific inquiry, or of scarce- 

 ly less importance in a public point of view. If 

 the latter has effected the destruction of a multi- 

 tude, the former has been as necessary to the sus- 

 tenance of millions. Science, or demonstrative 

 knowledge, is as necessary for the agriculturist 

 as for the navigator. Without it the farmer is a 

 mere machine, pursuing the path trod by his 

 fathers, and surrounded by a trackless ocean of 

 uncertainty, into vvliich. however he may avoid it 

 with instinctive dread, he is occasionally plunged 

 much to his discomfiture and loss. This would 

 not be the case if he clearly understood the prin- 

 ciples on which production is founded ; then he 



results. With a protected and encouraged agricul- might step out of tiie beaten path with safety, the 

 ture to sustain her manufacturing industry, she was trackless course would be as certain as that of the 

 laying deep the foundations of her power, and fast mariner guided by his compass ; he could feed his 

 rising in the scale of empire, and strengthening | roots, grains and grasses with their appropriate food 



herself for a tug in latter times, with the captain 

 whose will was lavv to continental Europe ; who 

 gave kingdoms as mere keepsakes, and infusing in- 

 to the millions of his conscripts the spirit of mar- 

 tial madness, trampled nations to silence in his 

 grasp at universal domJmon. From this contest 

 expen.'sive, protracted and bloody, almost beyond 

 precedent, by untiring if.dustry in her fields and 

 workshops, she came out, dictating terms of peace, 

 her resources comparatively but little impaired, and 

 the riches of her people almost undiminished ; de- 

 monstrating the pi).sition, that the basis of frue 

 national strength consists more in the science of 



peaceful arts, than in the art and science of war 



less in well appointed armies, than in a well ap- 

 pointed agricultuj-e. 



Agriculture is not only the basis of national 

 strength and wealth, but it is also the basis of civ- 

 ilization and social life. Christianity itself, after 

 repeated attempts without the aid of agriculture, 

 has failed to civilize the American savage ; nor 

 have its influences, without the same aid,' been 

 more successful in preventing the relapse to a state 

 of barbarism of the once civilized Asiatic. The 

 culture of the earth is as necessary also to sustain 

 social life, as is the culture of the mind to sustain 

 civil liberty ; and as truly as the fall of our free in- 

 titutions would follow the entire neglect of educa- 

 tion, so truly will the dissolution of civil society 

 follow the abandonment of agriculture. The ag- 

 ricultural skill cf any people is nearly a correct 

 indication of the amount and permanency of their 

 social comforts, for it is only that portion of all the 



and calculate results with certainty, e.xcept as va 

 ried by accident or season ; his dependence would 

 be upon known principles, established truths, rather 

 than tradition. Let him clearly understand the 

 deficiency of his soil, and what aliment it is neces- 

 sary to present to the germinating plant to bring it 

 to perfection, and what is necessary to counteract 

 or neutralize a superabundant or deleterious sub- 

 stance e.xisting in the soil, and he will produce his 

 crop of grain with as much certainty and facility, 

 aside from e.xtraneous causes, as the architect can 

 erect a granary in which to store it It is tliis 

 knowledge which the farmer wants, and he can get 

 it only by the aid of chemistry. It is this knowl- 

 edge which the farmer must have in some good 

 degree, before his profession will stand where na- 

 ture designed it to stand — the first among the first. 

 No occupation is more healthful or useful, and none 

 is better calculated to expand the mind and devel- 

 ope the noblest qualities of man. Although his 

 avocation is laborious, the toil of the intelligent 

 farmer is far from servile drudgery. A sense of 

 inferiority of profession he cinnot feel, for no other 

 stands nearer creative power, or is first the recipi- 

 ent of the Creator's bounty. In the great labora- 

 tory of nature he aids according to his intelligence 

 in the transmutation of various substances other- 

 wise useless, to grains and fruits, the product of 

 field and garden for supplies of necessity, of com- 

 fort, or of luxury ; and what mind in employment 

 so elevated but must in some measure lose its con- 

 tracting power .= or who can better appreciate the 

 lustrous beauty of the " bow in the cloud," the 



bright seal of the promise that " seed time and 

 harvest shall not cease," than those that sow the 

 seed and labor for that harvest without which, the 

 foundations of society must be broken up, the min 

 ister coine down from the altar, and the judge fro« 

 the bench, to seek subsistence, perchance froln-river 

 or forest .' 



The value of the agricultural products of the- 

 Commonwealth, compared with the value of the 

 product; of other branches of industry, it is believ- 

 ed, would present the importance of tlie farming 

 interest in a strong poi.<it of view. Unfortunately 

 a bill for the obtaining of these statistics wr.s lost 



in the last legislature, acd that important fact, 



the relative value of our agriculture, which should 



bb' well known, and well understood. remains a 



matter of conjectvlrc. 



It is estijiated from statistics of the British 

 empire, tliat the annual return from the land and 

 farming stock of tlie united kingdom is £474,029 CSS 

 and the annual return from the property in manu- 

 facture is £262,085,100, the manufacturing product 

 bearing to the agricultural product nearly the pro- 

 portion that five does to nine. 



As the manufactures of Massachusetts are prin- 

 cipally the growth of but little more than thirty 

 years, it would be considered wonderful if on ex. 

 amination they were found to bear the proportion 

 to our agriculture that those of the united kingdom 

 do to theirs, but unless they exceed that proportion 

 it will be seen by referring to the statistical returns 

 of our manufactures in 1837, and taking those re- 

 turns of eightysix and a quarter millions of dollars 

 to indicate the true product of our manufactures, 

 that the products of the land and farming stock of 

 Massachusetts in that year could not have been less 

 than one hundred and fiftyfive millions of dollars. 

 However much or little dependence may be placed 

 on this estimate, it can hardly be doubted that tlie 

 magnitude of our agricultural interest is not appre- 

 ciated. 



Hy the last census the population of the State 

 was about 700,000. Of this number not less than 

 400,000 are supposed to be engaged in agriculture, 

 and dependent directly and entirely upon that 

 source for subsistence. Of the remaining 300,000 

 a very considerable number are more or less en- 

 gaged in the same pursuit a part of their time ; and 

 as all engaged in manufacturing and commercial 

 operations are deeply interested in the success of 

 the fanner, as it allects the price and facility of 

 obtaining agricultural products, your Committee be- 

 lieve they may safely assume that no branch of do- 

 mestic industry is more important They also be- 

 lieve that no one is more susceptible of improve- 

 ment, and, so far as improvement goes, that no one 

 is so much neglected. 



The labor that would purchase a bushel of corn 

 thirty years ago, will now purchase only about the' 

 same quantity ; whereas the labor that would pur- 

 chase a yard of cotton cloth thirty years ago will 

 now purchase at least four yards of as good quali- 

 ty. This advance in the value of labor, when ap- 

 plied to tlie purchase of cotton cloth, arises from 

 improvements during the time specified, by intro- 

 ducing labor-saving machinery, and directing more 

 science and skill to the production of the cotton 

 and the manufacture of the cloth ; and if improve- 

 ments to the same extent had been made in the 

 production of corn, the results would have been 

 the same, without diminishing the profits of the 

 producer. 



The same general result will be the effect of 



