20 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



time allotted to this address in considering the general plan of 

 management which an Essex County farmer should adopt, and 

 also some of the difficulties he will meet in the prosecution of 

 his business. 



In the first place we must recognize the fact that our agricul- 

 ture, especially that of Eastern Massachusetts, is in a transition 

 state, and adapt our business to the wants of the times. The 

 best method for the practice of thirty years ago fails now to yield 

 any profit. The better facilities for transporting produce, the 

 high price of labor, the greater cost of living and high taxes, all 

 combine to render it almost impossible for the farm in Eastern 

 New England to pay a profit under the old system of culture. 

 The increased price of the great agricultural staples does not 

 keep pace with the increased cost of production. The rich lands 

 of the West can and will furnish us with these articles at prices 

 ruinous to an Eastern farmer. So long as the Western farmers 

 can pursue their present course of impoverishing the soil by con- 

 tinual cropping, just so long it is idle for the Eastern farmer to 

 attempt to compete with them. Our soil, originally far less pro- 

 ductive than theirs, has already undergone that process, and we 

 must restore in some measure the exhausted elements of fertil- 

 ity before we can expect large returns. 



The cost of cultivation is the principal item of expense that 

 enters into the calculations of a Western farmer, while here the 

 manure and labor necessary to its application form the heaviest 

 charge. The facilities which steam has furnished for cheap and 

 rapid transportation, bringing the products of South and West 

 to our very doors, has wrought a change in the condition of 

 New England agriculture, whose magnitude we cannot yet esti- 

 mate. The old opinion that the farmer should produce every- 

 thing that he consumes, and the kindred notion that he should 

 consume as far as possible everything that he produces, are ex- 

 ploded, and he finds he must adopt the free-trade principle of 

 producing those commodities which yield him the most profit, 

 which his circumstances best fit him to produce, and supply his 

 remaining wants from other sources. 



If we can raise onions, squashes, carrots or cabbages, or any 

 other product, and with this product buy twice as much corn as 

 we can obtain on the same ground with a like expenditure, it is 

 clearly poor economy to raise corn. 



