16 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



compete. If they send their beef to market, if they pack it 

 and ship it to Europe, before the fine Shorthorn steers of 

 Illinois find their way into the market they are offset by the 

 coarse, long-horned cattle from Hungary, perhaps, or Brazil, 

 or Texas. These are the trials to which they are compelled 

 to submit in their business ; but when the law of American 

 society becomes fixed here, and the centres of trade are estab- 

 lished throughout the West and the South, as they are through- 

 out the East, then the American farmer will learn exactly that 

 lesson which the Essex County farmer has learned, — that it is 

 the growth of products for the local markets which constitutes 

 the prosperity of American farming. Then our farmers every- 

 where will sit down in that uniform and steady prosperity 

 which marks all those men who know how to cultivate the 

 soil lying around the great centres of trade. There are no 

 men more prosperous than they, when they conduct their 

 business as it should be conducted. It cannot be done in a 

 careless, haphazard way, I grant. You cannot plant pear- 

 trees where you ought to raise potatoes, perhaps. You can- 

 not raise corn where you may raise mangold- wurzels. You 

 must discriminate, and accept the law that the supply of 

 local markets is the first thing, and then ascertain what crop 

 is best adapted to the soil on which you live. Then farming 

 becomes not only filled with the triumphant prosperity which 

 marked it in the beginning, but it becomes part of the busi- 

 ness of an intelligent, careful, ambitious, spirited and self- 

 reliant people, who are unwilling to take their stand longer 

 by the side of the semi-barbarians of a ruder farming on the 

 frontier, but are determined to stand by the side of those who, 

 by care and sleepless diligence, have organized our manufact- 

 ures and commerce for the prosperity of the country. That, 

 I conceive, to be American farming ; that, I know, is the 

 farming of Essex County; and there is not a farmer in this 

 room who does not know that all I say of his calling here is 

 true ; that all I say of his opportunity is continually before 

 his eyes. I believe the farmers around Haverhill know it. I 

 know the farmers around Salem do. But if you will point me 

 to a more prosperous body of men than those who in these 

 localities devote themselves to the soil, I am perfectly willing 

 to surrender my argument to you, but not till then. 



