AGRICXjLTVRAL society. 303 



acre, just as their descendants do now in the most fertile fields of the 

 Valleys of the Mississippi, the Sacramento, and San Joaquin. 



Yet, and here is the lesson, these very acres now yield at the most 

 but twelve or fourteen bushels each, while the average yield of 

 Duchess County, one of the best managed and richest districts on 

 the Hudson, yields not more than from six to eight. The estimate 

 might be justly made that out of say 12,000,000 acres of cultivated 

 land in New York State 8,000,000 have been or are ruined by "skin- 

 ners," who take away everything from the soil and put nothing back. 

 Three millions have" been kept in the hands of the farmers who have 

 managed them so as to m-ake the lands barely hold their own, the 

 remaining million being so farmed as to maintain a high and pro- 

 ductive state of fertility. And as New York is confessedly one of the 

 most substantial of all the older States, in point of agriculture, this 

 estimate may be taken as indicative and inclusive of all. I tell you 

 this as a sort of negative consolation, that you may not imagine your- 

 selves the only farming community possessing too little regard for 

 the future and its emergencies. It is not a fault confined to this State, 

 it is, to a greater or less extent, the fault throughout the United States. 

 As has been remarked before, the fault is being remedied in the East, 

 and that care of the soil is being taken, a scrupulous adherence to 

 which has alone enabled the agricultural nations of Old Europe, such 

 as England, France, and Holland, to sustain their millions. It is 

 true that we are enabled now in the plentitude of our new richness to 

 hold out full hands towards those whom depression and misfortune 

 have crushed. But I say again we are nearly come to the end of our 

 tether, and when these valleys are exhausted Heaven will be asked 

 to help us, for we surely will not be able to help ourselves. Lest in 

 just recompense for our conduct that prayer be not answered, let us 

 help ourselves as best we know how. That our Eastern brothers have 

 passed through the same experience of living and learning is no 

 reason why we should, because living and learning generally mean 

 living and losing to learn. We fortunately can live and look to learn. 



The evil at the bottom of this false system of husbandry is no secret. 

 I go back for one moment to correct the word husbandry; it is a mis- 

 nomer, for husbandry means thrift, frugality, and carefulness. A 

 soil— no matter how rich and untouched it may be — contains only a 

 given quantity of vegetable and mineral food for plants. Every crop 

 grown upon a fertile soil naturally takes from it a certain amount of 

 these substances, so essential to the growth of another crop. If, then, 

 these crops, like most of our grain products, are sent away and con- 

 sumed in other countries, or other parts of this country, as in great 

 cities, and none of their essential elements in the way of vegetable 

 matter, lime, potash, etc., are restored to the soil, it follows as an 

 inevitable consequence that eventually the soil must become barren, 

 or at least so miserably unprohtable that our State will receiye a 

 startling addition in its already significant list of worked-out claims. 



I shall not weary you with statistical tables or a formidable array 

 of figures, but you may take it as a fact that can be proven by statis- 

 tics, that wherever productiveness is most regarded or cared for, there 

 the science of agricultural chemistry receives fullest attention; there 

 a knowledge of the use of fertilizers is most widely spread. 



"But," you will object, "we cannot afford to pay for all the labor 

 necessary to carry out the high mode of farming you advocate." 



Are you certain that assertion is well grounded? Farming, like 



