24 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jail., 



a valuation of $1,216,000,000, an amount probably exceeding 

 any other industry in the United States, unless it be the steel 

 industry. Last year our hay crop was valued at $605,000,000 ; 

 cotton, $525,000,000. The cotton on which the products of 

 the industries of this city depend aggregated that enormous 

 total. Oats, $283,000,000; potatoes, $138,000,000; barley, 

 $68,000,000; tobacco, which you are all interested in, in 

 Connecticut, $52,000,000; horses, $1,200,000,000; cattle, 

 $1,144,000,000; hogs and sheep, $249,000,000. These items, 

 together with the valuation of other minor farm products, 

 gives us the enormous total of $6,411,000,000, representing 

 the product of our farms in the United States during the 

 last year, — something entirely beyond imagination, a sum 

 stupendous in its magnitude and far greater than the 

 product of any other industry of the country. But what 

 are the other results of this? Naturally with this increase 

 in the valuation of farm products comes an increase in 

 the valuation of the farms themselves. Farms which yes- 

 terday, or which a few years ago, could be purchased for from 

 $25.00 to $50.00 an acre are held at $100.00 and $125.00 an 

 acre now. Almost all over this country lands, and old lands, 

 have increased in value, and new lands have been brought into 

 the market and brought under cultivation. The increase in 

 values during the last five years is estimated to be $1,133,000.- 

 000, or, as the Secretary has put it, every sunset has registered 

 an increase of $3,400,000 in the farm values of this country, 

 and every month has registered an increase of $102,000,000. 

 I tell you, gentlemen, the wealth of this country is in the 

 hands of the farmers. No matter what others may say, the 

 wealth is in the hands of the farmers, and it is distributed 

 individually here and there exactly as wealth should be dis- 

 tributed. Now it would seem probable to us with all this great 

 increase in values in farm products and in the value of our 

 farms that we have reached the maximum development, but, 

 Mr. President and gentlemen, I want to tell you that this in- 

 crease has just begun. We cannot lie still and think we have 

 reached the maximum. This increase has been brought about 

 simply by intelligent effort, by the intelligence behind the 

 plow. And that reminds me of a little story I read the other 

 day in reference to an Irishman. The Irishman was in the 

 back coach of a railway train, and a gentleman came along 



