practical eye of cold
common sense, they must inevitably be condemned to disappointment. In so
far as they constitute an incentive towards improvement, they work great
good; but the success of the future is to be attained too often through
the distressing failure of the present. The art is an experimental one,
and the temptations to extend experiments are enticing. Unfortunately,
novel processes depend for their success upon contingencies which are
likely to be disregarded at the outset; and, however much any
improvement may be destined to prosper after its application shall have
been practically tested and modified, it is altogether likely that its
first introduction will result in failure. The mere money losses coming
of these failures are not so serious; but the discouragement and
disappointment that they entail exert the gravest influence where what
is chiefly needed is the encouragement of success.

It is something to know the direction that improving effort should take;
and it seems to be generally conceded that what American agriculture
needs, at the East and at the West, but especially at the East, is _an
improvement in the character of its personnel_. There is everywhere
ample opportunity for the profitable and successful introduction of
modified processes and of new industries. There is, too, hardly an
instance where the processes and industries now pursued are not
susceptible of great improvement of detail. There are few farms so well
managed and so successful, that if given into the hands of better, more
intelligent, and more enterprising farmers, they would not produce
better results. The father is working according to his light, and is
directing his work by such intelligence as his natural capacity and his
training have given him. His brighter son, with more natural
intelligence, with a better education, and less trammelled by
traditions and prejudices, might so modify the same industry as to make
it more certain, more profitable, and in every way more satisfactory.

The change that is now taking place, especially in New England, is
toward the greater economy of living, and the harder work and closer
management of business, that comes with immigrant proprietorship; and
this element is by no means to be depended upon for the improvement of
our farming. It may result in a more money-making agriculture, but it
will supplant our best political element by the introduction of what has
thus far seemed to be one