PROGRESS IN AGRICULTURE. 7 



Georgia in 1860 — being sixty millions to thirty. These facts 

 may surprise you, if your attention has not been paid to them, 

 and more than you, the people of the West. You will find 

 them revealed in the statistics gathered at Washington, and my 

 own experience and observation have tended to confirm their 

 truth. In average value still more, your yield per acre and 

 per hand engaged in agriculture exceeds that of all other sec- 

 tions of the Union.* This is owing to your proximity to the 

 largest and best markets created by manufactures and large 

 cities, and the fact that your agricultural population is less in 

 proportion to the whole number of people, than the agricultural 

 population of the Western States is to their whole number. It 

 is said that your agricultural population is diminishing. This 

 may be so. The tendency of improved machinery is to lessen 

 the number of laborers employed in a given section, and to 

 encourage those who have capital to undertake larger farms. 

 The aggregate production is doubtless increasing, though not in 

 New England, simply from the increase of cultivated area. The 

 time is coming, however, when the result will depend not so 

 much on area, as on theacreable capital engaged in agriculture. 

 Now though your cultivation may be better than in many of 

 the States, yet it is very far from developing fully the capabilities 

 of your soil. And as you are above many others, so are the 

 Lothians, in Scotland, superior to you in agriculture, and to all 

 other people in Europe. I commend you to their example. 



* The following table deduced from the results of the four years 1862-3-4 and 5, shows 

 the average value of corn and wheat in the seven Slates named, and at the same time 

 suggests to Western farmers the serious effects of costly transportation, and hints to them 

 the necessity of a home market: — 



STATES. 



Value of Corn 

 per acre. 



Value of Wheat 



Vermont, 

 New Jersey, 

 Maryland, 

 Ohio, 

 Indiana, . 

 Illinois, . 

 Iowa, 



$48 80 

 37 30 

 24 19 

 20 20 

 17 96 

 14 47 

 19 59 



$29 03 

 28 25 

 21 73 

 16 25 

 16 30 

 14 36 

 12 85 



Average Wages per Month of Farm Laborers. — Eastern States, $33.30; Middle States, 

 $30.07; Western States, $28.91; Southern States, $16. 



