328 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



dictates, that your fertile valleys and beautiful lands, of which 

 you have plenty all over your State, shall be divided and sub- 

 • divided and filled with happy homes ; and it is also part of your 

 duty to urge your people to cultivate only such land as will pay 

 for cultivation. 



Mr. Lucas. I feel that there is great force in the last remarks 

 of the gentleman. I have seen much of the evil, and will mention 

 a single instance in illustration : In 1847, a friend of mine moved 

 into the town where I lived and bought a farm which he purchased 

 for three hundred dollars, including land, a comfortable house aud 

 an ordinary barn. It was very stony. When you removed the 

 first tier of rocks a second just like it lay beneath, and when that 

 was removed there was a third. It was imich like a portion of the 

 land in eastern New Hampshire with which 1 am acquainted. I 

 told him that he might work there year in and year out, and 

 although he might not grow any poorer, he never could grow any 

 richer there. Finally I went so far as to say to him, (from the 

 fact that he was a connection, and what I was going to give biui 

 was only giving to another part of my family,) that if he would 

 sell it and quit, I would make up his loss. He did so and pot 

 himself on an average farm where he succeeded well and made 

 himself considerably better off than the average of farmers. If he 

 had remained there he never, probably, could have been worth a 

 dollar made from the farm. Too many of our farmers are of that 

 character. 



Another thing ; too many farmers are content with poor horses 

 and too poor stock generally. Only a small proportion of the 

 horses pay a profit on their keeping and raising; one third of them 

 are worth more than all the rest; and we keep more than we ought 

 to. As lor their cattle, our farmers, or too many of them, grow 

 them of such appearance, character and size, and put them into 

 the market at such an age, as to lose the greater part of their cost; 

 whereas another grade of cattle, treated differently and matured 

 properly, might have been put into the market at paying prices. 

 There is another thing that our farmers ought to understand ; that 

 is, that they do not cut their hay early enough by two or three 

 weeks. I was in Aroostook county this Fall; I left Orono the 7th 

 of August, and when I got up there they were just in the middle 

 of haying, and they continued it until the 23d of August; — and 

 there were hundreds of tons to be cut then. You all know what 

 that is worth. That accounts for the amount of seed we get from 



