FORAGE CROPS IN NEW ENGLAND. 161 



the ground is successfully seeded with grass, it usually pro- 

 duces little except useless weeds the remainder of the season. 

 Is it not, then, a wiser economy to grow valuable forage crops 

 at the rate of two or three tons of dried fodder per acre than 

 to give the land over to such weeds as barn-grass and Roman 

 wormwood ? 



How many of us would be willing to hire money at six per 

 cent interest, and keep it on hand nine or ten months, for 

 paying a debt that will not become due till the end of that 

 period ? 



One reason why we so dread a mortgage is because the 

 interest is accumulating against us, and growing bigger nights 

 and Sundays ; but, if the property upon which interest be 

 paid is constantly productive, then a mortgage may not neces- 

 sarily be feared. 



The grand mistake that New-England farmers are making 

 is in carrying, in their names, too much land that is Ijing 

 comparatively idle. They are paying interest and taxes on 

 barren fields which ought to be producing valuable crops, 

 and they jDay interest and taxes on empty buildings that 

 ought to be filled by the crops from these barren fields. 

 They hire land, or (what is the same thing, or worse) buy 

 land with money hired at high rates of interest, pay as high 

 wages for labor as enterprising mechanics and tradesmen 

 pay, and then eftiploy this land and labor in growing crops 

 which would disgrace Nature, were Nature left to have her 

 own way. It is true, the time has been when a liberal 

 income could be secured by cropping wide areas of New- 

 England soil, but that time is passed ; and the sooner farmers 

 realize that fact, and learn how to adapt themselves to the- 

 changed conditions, the better it will be for them, and the 

 sooner will New England be able to regain the proud posi- 

 tion so long held, but which has been gradually slipping 

 from under her feet. 



I think I have never found a hundred-acre farm in Massa- 

 chusetts that might not make two fifty-acre farms, each capa- 

 ble of producing more than the whole does now ; and the 

 average farm may be divided and subdivided I know not 

 how many times, before its fullest productive capacity will 

 be reached. 



I have for a few years been endeavoring to increase the 



