REARING AND FEEDING FARM STOCK. I55 



expressed but have never found satisfactory evidence of it. That 

 they will enrich some portions of a pasture more than other stock, 

 I have no doubt, but that they will enrich the whole of a pasture 

 sufficiently large to feed them properly through the season, I have 

 very serious doubts. Only small portions of our pastures over 

 get fertile enough through/ such agencies to produce better than 

 the average of our fields that we cultivate after they cease to pro- 

 duce a satisfactory crop of grass. 



Another popular error, as I believe, is in cultivating too much 

 surface. The crops as a whole pay little more than the expense 

 of raising, and as large portions of land are cultivated to oats and 

 no returns made in the way of fertilizers, I ask how is it possible 

 with such treatment that land can otherwise than deteriorate ? 

 Always dipping out of the meal tub and never putting any in, one 

 will soon come to the bottom. Our boast is too much in large 

 farms and large areas in crops ; I have lately examined the agri- 

 cultural statistics of France and find that she has an area smaller 

 than the State of Texas, with a population of about thirty-eight 

 millions, or three and one-half acres to an inhabitant, while iu this 

 country we have fifty acres to each inhabitant ; and while our 

 farms range from 100 to 150 acres, theirs' range from 10 to 15, 

 and after supporting their own population, their exports are 

 greater than ours. In 1868, there were produced in the United 

 States 240 millions of bushels of wheat, and the same yiar France 

 produced 350 millions of bushels ; and while we exported nine 

 millions of dollars worth to England, they exported eleven millions 

 of dollars worth of butter, and their exports exceeded ours in 

 almost every product of agriculture save cotton and tobacco. 

 Now with farms only one-tenth as large as ours in the State of 

 Maine, and about the same ratio to the rest of New England, and 

 a population to feed equal to that of the United States all told, 

 one of two inferences must be drawn — either they produce very 

 much more in proportion to the area cultivated, or subsist upon 

 very much less than is supposed to be necessary in this country. 

 Be that as it may, it would seem that we ought to learn and profit 

 by their example. Our boast ought not to be how large area we 

 cultivate, but how much we produce from what we do cultivate. 

 Not how early we get up in the morning, but how well we do 

 after we do get up. It requires a demonstration upon such sub- 

 jects to produce the desired effect ; facts and figures are what are 

 needed. In all our agricultural writings, this most important 



