OUR SOIL, OUR CLIMATE, OUR CROPS. 45 



Railroads which annihilate distance, cheapen transportation, 

 preserve products and bring new markets within our reach, 

 thread their way among our hills from north to south, and east 

 to west, and are doing for us with punctuality and dispatch the 

 labor of a host of beasts of burden. The number and quality 

 of both of these avenues of communication is rapidly increas- 

 ing, and every benefit to be derived from this source is surely 

 ours. If, then, this course of reasoning and these facts are 

 correct, Massachusetts, as an agricultural State, has a soil and 

 climate that are genial for the production of a class of animals, 

 reasoning and unreasoning, which are as good, to say the least, 

 as any the world has ever seen ; and genial for the production 

 of those plants which such animal natures require ; the advan- 

 tage of markets beyond any capacity of ours to glut, which are 

 stable, of great variety, able to pay, and adjoining the fields we 

 cultivate, and the very best, the cheapest and quickest commu- 

 nication to all desirable points. But our markets are free, as 

 they should be, to the agricultural products of the world. 

 Those who have no markets of their own seek one here, and 

 thus become our competitors ; but distance, facilities and cost 

 of transportation confine them to a very few of the articles 

 contained in the list which our market demands. 



Remembering this, that our farmers at present cannot supply 

 all the food our population requires, and that much of it must 

 come from abroad, the practical question for us to decide is : 

 What crops which our markets demand shall we grow, which 

 do not bring us into competition with the foreign producers ? 

 An average acre of hay in Massachusetts is worth $22.75 ; in 

 Illinois, $13.30 ; and with that difference in its value, the Illi- 

 nois or any other Western farmer cannot send hay here. Until 

 they get their eyes open (which will not be long hence), the farm- 

 ers of Vermont and Maine will send us some hay. But not- 

 withstanding this, hay is, and is to be, one of the best crops our 

 farmers can raise ; the best for profit and for the fertility of 

 our farms, because most of it is sold in adjoining towns and 

 cities, from whence its fertilizing elements may be returned to 

 the fields from which it was taken. In the products of hay, 

 milk and butter, the field is practically all our own. The other 

 New England States share in the advantage, but the West can- 

 not compete or interfere. The average worth of an acre of 



