212 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



by the same floating class of laborers that now carry it on ; 

 so that such a system of farming, could it prevail, would be 

 antagonistic to home-life. 



But we go one step farther, and say, as we now under- 

 stand the principles of agriculture, such a farm can be car- 

 ried on with profit in this way only for a limited time. The 

 method is simply land-robbery, or robbery of the soil ; and, 

 as the time comes when the soil demands a return, this re- 

 turn must be made from many centres where stock can be 

 kept, and from which farm-fertilizers can be carted ; and 

 this can be done at a profit only for a very short distance 

 from the various centres. The sustaining and reclaiming of 

 farms seem to demand that they should be of moderate 

 dimensions, — that seventy-five thousand acres of wheat 

 should represent five hundred large and profitable farms of 

 a hundred and fifty acres each, in a State having diversified 

 labor, as all our States are bound to become. For fifty years 

 to come, that great tract of land will support five hundred 

 farmers' families, and furnish a larger agricultural product 

 of all kinds, for sale, than it possibly could without a family 

 upon it, by the present gigantic system of misnamed agri- 

 culture. 



Mr. Edward Richardson of Mississippi owns fifty-two thou- 

 sand acres of land, and raises twelve thousand bales of cot- 

 ton, being the largest cotton-raiser in the world. He turns 

 every thing to account ; and he lives in a place where this 

 system can be carried on longer, probably, than the Dakota 

 system can at the North. But men like Richardson are as 

 rare as Napoleons. Such great estates must fall to pieces, 

 or at least be few in number. The tendency North and 

 South is to small farms, as diversified industry increases, and 

 diversified crops are called for, — those that require an 

 increase of hand-labor. 



The old plantations in many places at the South are 

 broken up ; and small farmers raise ten, twenty, or thirty 

 bales of cotton, which they gather with care, and turn into 

 ready money. And so I dare to projihesy, however risky 

 this business may be, that the tendency will be towards 

 smaller farms, even at the West and South ; that manufac- 

 tures will spread, and the farms will be called upon for a 

 varied product, which, with its increased demand for hand- 



