152 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



Ohio was about $2.40 per bushel, or from $27 to $30 per acre, 

 and Texas, $1 90, or from $17 to $18 per acre. 



These figures are for the grain alone, but while the corn 

 stover is comparatively worthless in the West and South, here 

 it is worth from $10 to $15 per acre, and for straw the differ- 

 ence is fully as great. 



If you raise oats, the average crop of Massachusetts is 28 

 bushels, which is worth, one year with another, 75 cents per 

 bushel ; in Ohio, the crop is 80 bushels, and Texas 28 bushels, 

 worth 40 cents per bushel, with the same difference in the value of 

 straw as before given. The tobacco crop in Massachusetts is 1,100 

 pounds per acre, and the superiority of the Connecticut River 

 Valley tobacco over that of most other States, is too well known 

 to need comment, while the crop in this Stata is more than 

 treble in value that of Virginia. Of hay we raise one ton in 

 Massachusetts to one and one-half tons in Ohio, and one and 

 two-thirds in Texas ; but the crop in Massachusetts has been for 

 years, when harvested, worth $25 per ton, Ohio, $12 to $15, 

 and Texas, $16 to $18 per ton. 



Although the soil of Massachusetts is often mentioned as 

 being exhausted by over-cropping through a long series of 

 years, yet in no State is the crop so varied, the quantity pro- 

 duced so large, or the harvest so valuable as in this State. Cal- 

 ifornia and Minnesota exceed us in the quantity of wheat raised 

 acre by acre, but do not equal us in other products. Allowing 

 these figures to be true, one may well contend that the cost is 

 so much greater here than elsewhere, that the balance remains 

 in favor of the South and West. Taking an average of the 

 whole amount under cultivation, and of prices by the actual re- 

 sults, it appears that in Massachusetts, the value of produce per 

 acre is $28, Ohio $18, and Texas and California $21 each. 

 The aggregate amount is of course dependent on the area of 

 land cultivated, but taken acre for acre, the result has been 

 shown. 



Even if we allow the financial advantages claimed by the 

 friends of Western or Southern farming, still the balance re- 

 mains in favor of Massachusetts, particularly when we take into 

 the account the domestic comforts of the different sections. 

 There, a small, rudely-built house, containing from one to three 



