330 BOAED OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan., 



persons engaged in agriculture. In this, New Jersey led, with 

 $4,079.39; then-followed Pennsylvania, New York, and Delaware; 

 then Connecticut, with $2,846.11; and again the States that seem 

 naore favored were below us. 



Whether considered as to capital employed per hand, or value 

 of product produced per acre, or value of product per hand, the 

 place of Connecticut was high. 



It is probable that the figures for 1880 will not be relatively so 

 good, for several reasons; one important one is that the census 

 year was an unusually favorable one in most of the Western 

 States, and relatively better than here. But the figures are en- 

 couraging. 



No ; Connecticut agriculture is not dead yet, by any means. 

 With nearly fifty organizations of farmers in the State for the 

 promotion of agriculture, with the use of commercial fertilizers 

 and a State Agricultural Experiment Station to aid in the intelli- 

 gent use of all scientific helps, I have no fears but that the State 

 will hold its own, and with increasing density of population the 

 utilization of all farm products will be more and more complete. 

 When we can learn, as a State, to love sheep more than dogs, that 

 will be another gain. 



With the decrease in the average size of the farms, and greater 

 number of farms that inevitably takes place as a result of our 

 system of land tenure, there will be intenser and intenser culture, 

 and a looking after those products in which we are on a level with 

 or ahead of the West, to supply our local or near markets. Of the 

 seven classes of improvements spoken of, five help us as much as 

 they do the West ; and when that country becomes denser settled, 

 and the land taken up, and when the inducements to take up new 

 lands in order to make money on the rise in the value of the land 

 will be less, then the apparent disadvantage under which we labor 

 will be less. So far as making money by farming is concerned, 

 the new States have the advantages noted, and which will grow 

 less and less. 



One more thought and I must close. From what I know of the 

 comforts of farm life and the farmers' home in Connecticut and in 

 the newer States, there is a phase in which I think you have an 

 enormous advantage. How often have we heard returning men 

 say that if they would live as poorly here, and subject themselves 

 to the same privations that they were forced to in the newer 

 regions, that they would make as much money, or more; but that 



