46 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



corn in Massachusetts is $44. CO ; in Illinois, $13.80 ; and there 

 is about the same difference in the value of wheat. Kow these 

 are crops which the Western farmers can transport, and with 

 the ideas entertained by a majority of them, about the only 

 ones they can. In fact, necessity compels them to send them 

 to our markets, if they do not get half paid for the labor of 

 cultivation. Though we can'make as much money on an acre 

 of these grains as any man in the West, yet with our advan- 

 tages we can do much better in some other direction. Let 

 their grain come and be fed here to enrich our fields, while we 

 make double the money in producing fruits, vegetables and 

 other products which distance renders it impossible for them to 

 send. When we remember the great variety of articles of con- 

 sumption which our markets require, and which our soil and 

 climate produce in perfection, and the small number which 

 farmers abroad can really afford to supply, we shall see that we 

 possess a field for the most prosperous and successful agriculture 

 in the Union. I say this, not to discourage emigration, for that 

 has never injured us, and it has been our country's salvation ; 

 but I say it to encourage those who remain to avail themselves 

 of and improve our intrinsic advantages for their own welfare 

 and that of the State. 



