52 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



the owner of land to devote himself to the business. The 

 independent ownership of the soil here stands in the way of 

 farming, inasmuch as the natural desire of a land-owner is to 

 employ others to do that which he might and ought to do 

 himself. 



Still, farming is now, as it was in the early days of the 

 Republic, a leading industry ; and whether agreeable or not, 

 it will always be the sujiport of by far the largest part of the 

 human race. That it may be the leading occupation of a 

 prosperous and powerful people, there is no doubt. When 

 our country was settled, when it was endowed with nationality, 

 agriculture was almost the only occupation known among us. 

 It was an agricultural people who founded every colony ; it 

 was " the embattled farmers " who fought the battles of the 

 Revolution ; and it was from the resources of a people thus 

 occupied that the financial honor of the country in that early 

 critical period was maintained. Farming then was compar- 

 atively easy. Our ancestors lived on a virgin soil, and they 

 raised great crops with but little difficulty and without any 

 great expense of fertilizers. The pastures were luxuriant, 

 and cattle of any proportions and structure were easily fed on 

 them. Col. Pickering gives a record of crops in Essex County 

 in his day which astonishes us now, — 700 bushels of potatoes, 

 800 bushels of Swedes, 1,000 bushels of mangel-wurzels to an 

 acre, and thirty tons of hay on ten acres year after year, and 

 all this without great difficulty or expense. The farmer of 

 those days found it easy to supply his family, and always had 

 a surplus for the neighboring market, and found something to 

 add to the exports of the country. Farming was easy, 

 profitable and substantial. It lay at the foundation of the 

 State and of society. 



Nor has this relation changed in our day. From the 

 products of the soil we still derive the largest amount of 

 that export which must, in a measure, secure our financial 

 success. It is a good thing for a people to have the balance 

 of trade with foreign nations in their favor. The payment of 

 foreign indebtedness by the products of a nation's industry, 

 means national prosperity. And I am always confident of the 

 financial success of a people when their exports exceed their 

 imports. It was so in the early days of our Republic ; it is so 



