CONDITION OF AGRICULTURE. 315 



of sheep for a supply of food, as well as of clothing, have im- 

 parted to the lands of England a fertility which could not other- 

 wise have been obtained consistently with the general prosper- 

 ity of the nation. 1 say consistently with the general prosperity 

 of the nation, for no people can make agriculture a profitable 

 pursuit, unless nearly all the manure used upon the land is ob- 

 tained from the crops growing thereon, and this with little or no 

 charge for transportation. And it is still more evident that 

 manure cannot be purchased by the crops, unless the latter be 

 sold at consumption prices. The raising of such large num- 

 bers of cattle and sheep in the British Islands enables her hus- 

 bandmen to manufacture manure upon their farms in the 

 cheapest possible manner ; and this applied under the liglu 

 which the present state of agricultural science and experience 

 affords, gives to the lands of the kingdom a fertility of which 

 perhaps no other nation can boast. 



There is nothing peculiar to the climate of Great Britain, nor 

 to the crops she cultivates, which should swell her products so 

 much above those of our own soil. There is nothing in her 

 mode of agriculture which we cannot imitate and adopt. Her 

 necessities for production we do not feel as a nation. Land is 

 here so easy of attainment that it has been thought more pro- 

 fitable in some parts of the country to wear it out by cropping 

 and then abandon it, than to follow a regular system of hus- 

 bandry with a view of preserving in the soil its ordinary fertil- 

 ity. But it is to be hoped that the evil of such a course has 

 been fully developed, and that in the older States, where the 

 weight of a dense population is beginning to be felt, the neces- 

 sity of an increased agricultural production will achieve for us 

 what the same cause has accomplished for the older nations of 

 Europe. 



But there are still among us some who maintain that farm- 

 ing is unprofitable in Massachusetts ; that, however inviting 

 may be her position and advantages for commerce and manu- 

 factures, the tillers of her soil cannot compete with the inhab- 

 itants of the more fruitful West, and that it is bad economy to 

 prosecute farming under the drawbacks of a frigid clime and 

 sterile soil. 



The statistics of the last census form the best answer to this 

 complaint, and the averages of the leading crops will show that, 



