PKACTICAL HINTS ON FARMING. 31 



participating in the great march which agricultural develop- 

 ment promises to the rising generation. 



Already we have engaged in this occupation eight millions 

 of horses, one million of mules, and nearly twenty millions of 

 horned cattle ; and including the value of farm implements 

 and machinery, we have a money investment of not less than 

 one thousand millions of dollars as a working capital, outside 

 of the value of the lands and the buildings devoted to farming, 

 which involve so large an aggregate of capital as to call for 

 the utmost activity and enterprise of our people to produce 

 an adequate income on an investment of so much consequence. 



It is, however, to be deplored that by reason of our 

 extended territory and sparse labor, and a want of a proper 

 ambition on the part of our young men for agricultural 

 occupations, that we fall far behind the productive energy of 

 other forms of industry in our country, and still farther 

 behind the agriculture of Europe. Our cities are growing 

 prematurely at the expense of the rural districts, because our 

 young men have become restless on farms, and seek that 

 excitement in overcrowded trades and professions, and the 

 more hazardous business of speculation, which at this time is 

 so fearfully developing general bankruptcy and poverty in 

 the cities and towns of our country. 



New England has more particularly suffered in this way, 

 as well as by emigration to the West, and it seems hard that 

 the enterprise and intelligence of her sons should be utilized 

 everywhere else at the expense of their old homesteads. The 

 foct cannot be disguised that we have so undervalued the 

 occupation of the farmer, regarding him as a mere laborer in 

 a tield devoid of progress, and requiring no intellectual effort 

 to insure success, that an intelligent young man, with aspi- 

 rations above such an occupation, finding little field for his 

 ambition, quits the occupation as soon as he finds opportunity. 



In 1850, the census shows that the manufacturers of Massa- 

 chusetts produced annually but $158,000,000, while the census 

 of 1870 shows a product of $554,000,000, an increase of over 

 three hundred per cent, in twenty years. This evidence of 

 enterprise and thrift is not only worthy of the genius and 

 industry of our people, but it furnishes an important accession 

 to our home market, by the increased demand for farm 



