318 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



excepting tobacco, which is stated at $34.95, and ahnost five 

 times the average of the cotton crop for tliat year, which is set 

 down at $19.73. 



Taking, then, the crops of Indian corn, wheat and rye, as 

 raised and offered for premiums in the last two years, and 

 whether the aggregate value or the net profit be regarded, mak- 

 ing every allowance for the extra labor bestowed upon tliem 

 and all due allowance for the difference in the value of farms 

 here, as compared with other States, and for the additional cost 

 of maintaining stock through a northern winter, it would be 

 unsafe to assert that farming cannot be made, not only com- 

 paratively but actually, a profitable pursuit in Massachusetts. 



In addition to the cereal crops, turnips, beets and carrots can 

 be raised with equal or greater advantage. Considerable at- 

 tention has been paid to the cultivation of the last-named root, 

 and from a table prepared by a well-known agriculturist, in 

 Worcester County, it appears that the average of twenty crops, 

 during a series of years, has been twenty tons per acre, at a cost 

 of $4.97 per ton. This, at $10 per ton, would leave a clear 

 profit of $101.20 per acre, and the gross value of the crop would 

 be ten times the amount of that of cotton. But the compari- 

 son does not end here. The carrots could be fed upon the 

 ground, and the elements of the entire crop remaining upon the 

 farm would annually improve the land, whilst the cultivation 

 of cotton works a continual deterioration of the soil upon 

 which it is grown. 



The deeper the examination the stronger the conviction that 

 agriculture is here a profitable pursuit. It is a profitable pur- 

 suit everywhere. True, there are countries of great fertility, 

 which, exporting a large portion of their products, do not 

 make a flattering exhibition of national wealth. In such 

 instances it is the disposition of the crops, and not the expense 

 of their cultivation, which affects the national progress. But 

 where the product of the soil is mainly consumed at home, 

 there agriculture vindicates its claim to a profitable employ- 

 ment. How could it be otherwise ? Is it not a rebellion 

 against the decrees of Providence to assert, that man is to starve 

 in an undertaking which God has ordered him to fulfil, and 

 that the Divine promise of seed-time and harvest was a mockery, 

 rather than a fruition ? 



