32 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



products from the increase of the manufacturing population, 

 and should have encouraged a corresponding increase in farm 

 products to supply the demand. But we find that while by the 

 census of 1850, Massachusetts had under cultivation 2,130,000 

 acres of land, that of 1870 shows but 1,736,000 acres, and 

 while the production in 1850 of wheat, rye, corn and buck- 

 wheat aggregated 4,000,000 bushels, the census of 1870 

 shows a product of but a quarter of a million of bushels. The 

 product qf butter and cheese, in 1850, amounted to fifteen 

 millions of pounds, and in 1870 it fell off to less than seven 

 millions of pounds ; and the census also shows a corresponding 

 decadence in acreage cultivated, in persons engaged in farm- 

 ing, and in the depreciation of the value of the land. 



This falling off is only apparent, and so far from being an 

 evidence of the decline of our agricultural industries, is only 

 a striking evidence of the notoriously defective census. The 

 area of Massachusetts is 4,992,000 acres, while the number 

 of acres covered by or embraced in the census of 1870, 

 including woodland, and all improved and unimproved land 

 of every kind, is only 2,730,283, or a little more than half 

 the actual acreage of the State. More than nine thousand 

 farms are left out of the returns entirely, and with them all the 

 statistics that they involve, so that the census of 1870 does 

 not give us even an approximation to the truth as to the 

 present condition of our farm industry, as compared with 

 that of 1850 or 1860. For this we must look to the statistics 

 of industry, as returned to the State in 1875, and now nearly 

 ready for use. 



I am constrained to adduce the discouraging figures, because 

 if they were true, the remedy is in our own power, and I have 

 confidence in our young farmers — a race of the best type of 

 American manhood and culture, having qualities the most ver- 

 satile, strength joined with dexterity, and a facility to acquire 

 practical and intellectual knowledge which fits them for any 

 occupation which we can induce them to undertake. We must 

 inspire them with confidence in agriculture as a progressive 

 occupation, requiring the closest investigation of science and 

 the best application of art, and, with proper industry and 

 economy, as sure a road to independence as any other occupa- 

 tion so free from hazard and misfortune. 



