;|i 20 SPEECH OF HON. JUSTIN S. MORRILL. 



diminished, because prices have advanced in even greater ratio than 

 the diminution of the crop. The fact will still remain that the land 

 grows less and less capable of supporting its population. Other 

 fields may open, but this is closing. Starvation, though distant, is 

 still visible in the skeleton at the end of the road. Land that will not 

 produce corn or wheat, may be devoted to some other crop, but 

 the product is likely to be less valuable. It may sustain cattle, 

 but not men. Grazing, properly conducted, may renovate the 

 soil, but that husbandry, while it requires fewer numbers in its 

 conduct, also supports fewer numbei's. Its profits may be grati- 

 fying to the few, but they are banishment to the many. In China, 

 few animals are raised for slaughter, because all the land is needed 

 to supply food for man. In Ireland their live stock has recently 

 increased, but Irishmen have sadly dwindled. Drive out men and 

 you give room for brutes, but the change is not pleasant to con- 

 template. 



It must be remembered that even the old States have a vast 

 amount more of lands improved now, and a greater population than 

 they had ten years ago, and from these causes alone should have 

 made a large increase of crops. But it would appear that these 

 new lands and larger forces are becoming necessary to counterbal- 

 ance the deterioration of the older fields. It is a striking fact that 

 the increased production is derived from new lands either in the 

 new States or lands freshly cultivated in the old States. The long 

 cultivated lands appear to be declining at the very time when they 

 should be advancing to a higher and more remunerative fertility. 

 Our grain-growing region is rapidly retreating westwardly. The 

 States that now furnish corn to any extent beyond their own con- 

 sumption are few in number, and destined soon to bo less. 



That there is a gratifying advance of agricultural wealth within the 

 past ten years in many respects is true, but with our magnificent op- 

 portunity and with an eye on the future, it certainly is not wholly 

 satisfactory. We are in the rear of Europe, and that will never be 

 satisfactory. The English have what they call exhausting, restor- 

 ing and cleaning crops. But we seem to have got so far only as to 

 adopt the exhausting crops. There capital finds the most solid secu- 

 rity invested in land and its improvements. Here such enterprises 

 spoil a man's credit on the exchange. The true system of farming 

 would seem to be to make the land more fertile than it is in its 

 natural state, and every succeeding crop better than the last. By 



