THE HAY- CROP. 205 



animals that are not kept upon our farms, — forty-five thou- 

 sand horses, and fifty thousand oxen and cows, — that are in 

 towns and villages, and not upon the farms. They feed upon 

 hay brought from somewhere, and must consume annually 

 more than two hundred thousand tons. Between four and 

 five millions of dollars annually are paid by Massachusetts 

 men for hay, and this money goes somewhere. Here is a 

 demand which should make hay in Massachusetts a commer- 

 cial product. We w^ant not simply to sustain our farms and 

 keep up their fertility, but we want to have the Yankee wdt 

 and ingenuity to avail ourselves of the advantages which we 

 possess in Massachusetts, owing to the density of our popula- 

 tion and the wants which our civilization brings ; and, if pos- 

 sible, we Avant to retain here in Massachusetts, and save to 

 our farmers the four or five millions which are being annually 

 paid out by our citizens for the hay-crop produced by some- 

 body. Now I don't want you to say that Ve cannot atford to 

 raise hay and sell it ; that if we do we cannot keep our farms 

 up. As well say that the farmer in Vermont cannot afford 

 to sell his hay for twelve dollars a ton, which the man in 

 Massachusetts, w^ho must buy hay, must pay thirty-five dollars 

 for. The farmer in Vermont or Central New York gets 

 about twelve dollars a ton for his hay. The man in Worces- 

 ter, who is feeding horses, pays thirty-five dollars for it. Who 

 has the difference between the twelve dollars and the thirty- 

 five dollars ? Now if the farmer in New York or in Vermont 

 or in Maine can afford to sell his hay for twelve dollars a ton, 

 can't you get up Yankee w^it enough, when the place of con- 

 sumption is. within two hours' drive of the farm, to support 

 your farms and sell yom- hay where you can get thirty-five 

 dollars a ton for it, and make money enough by the opera- 

 tion to enable you to keep up the fertility of your farms so 

 that they will produce hay ? I am after that five millions of 

 dollars ! I do not want it to go to New York, where our 

 friend Lewis comes from, nor to Vermont or New Hampshire. 

 I want the farmers of Massachusetts to contrive some way to 

 keep their farms up, and yet keep that money at home. I tell 

 you, I do not believe but what we can do it. In the first 

 place, all those men can do it who are so situated that they 

 can carry their hay to market and return the produce of that 



