PROSPECTS OP AMERICAN AGRICULTURE. £41 



purifiers of the atmosphere than the native forests. The fear that 

 this continent would become a black hole of Calcutta has proved 

 groundless ; and so the idea, that when we have done the pioneer 

 work of agriculture there will be little to do, is equally erroneous. 

 The better we farm, the farther we advance; the more improve- 

 ments we make, the more work will there be to do. Let us be 

 thankful. On my own farm I have little or no wood to chop in 

 winter, and yet I find no difficulty in keeping nearly as many men 

 at work in the winter and spring months as during the month of 

 harvest. In fact, wages being much less, I employ more men in 

 the spring than during the summer. 



Few farmers, 25 or 50 years ago, could have anticipated such a 

 result. The truth is, there is scarcely any limit to the amount of 

 work to be done on the farm. The more we do the more there is 

 to be done. AVork makes work. And as a rule our profits come 

 not from land but from labor. 



When the duties were taken off foreign grain the English farm- 

 ers thought their occupation was gone. They thought it was 

 impossible for them to compete with the owners of cheap land. 

 They really believed that there was land so rich, that, in the lan- 

 guage of Douglas Jerrold, it " needed only to be tickled with a 

 hoe to make it laugh with a harvest." Experience has proved 

 their fears groundless. It will be so in this country. Many of us 

 who reside in the older settled States, think we cannot compete 

 with the cheap, rich lands of the West. And no doubt this com- 

 petition demands our best thoughts, and will tax our skill and 

 energy. We may have to make many and frequent changes in our 

 rotations and general management. But we need not despair. 

 We shall be able to make a living. There is no paradise on earth. 

 " By the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread." There will be 

 found advantages and disadvantages in all sections. More depends 

 on the man than on the situation. 



I read a remark a few weeks ago, in one of our leading papers, 

 that owing to the enormous amount of land in this country, it 

 would be 250 years before there was any real necessity for scien- 

 tific agriculture. The writer evidently attached some technical and 

 definite meaning to the phrase "scientific agriculture." The truth 

 is, however, that what would be scientific farming in England, 

 might not be scientific farming in America ; what would be scien- 

 tific farming in New England or New York might not be scientific 

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