AGRICULTURE OF MASSACHUSETTS. 379 



Worcester, Berkshire, and Hampden make five-sixths of all 

 the cheese manufactured in the Commonwealth. 



With rapid transportation and refrigerator-cars, the great 

 creameries of Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin are passing us 

 in the quality and price of butter ; and it behooves us to take 

 the utmost pains with our cows, our milk, and our butter- 

 making, to retain control of the Boston market, for home 

 consumption, and for export. Good cows, good feed, and 

 thorough cleanliness at every step in the manufacture, will 

 secure this. 



Without doubt, one of the most prevailing and best cred- 

 ited reasons for believing that agriculture has declined in 

 Massachusetts, is judging from the fictitious stand-point of 

 the very high prices ruling for agricultural products during 

 the late war, and for some time after its close. 



Through that fearful strife, when over a million of able- 

 bodied men from the North were changed from producers to 

 consumers, the Government, obliged to maintain them in the 

 field, was, from the inadequate supply of all articles of food 

 and clothing which come from the farm, forced to pay ver\- 

 largely for them ; and thus a scale of prices was established 

 through the country, far above the rates which had prevailed 

 before the war, and which we had been accustomed to receive. 



These, with the inflation of the currency, induced among 

 us more extended cultivation ; and this, with a, scarcity of 

 labor, enhanced the cost of all that we produced. 



This increased production continued for some years after 

 the war ; and, when it declined, prices still were kept up, and 

 it was a long time before they were brought down to ante 

 helium times. 



In the long run it was a misfortune for our farmers to 

 have received such high-sounding, paper-money prices, as 

 they did for every thing they made, raised, or grcAV during 

 this period. A factitious value was created which could not 

 and did not continue very long after the emergency creating 

 it had passed. It was disappointing and hard for farmers to 

 realize this fact, and they did not readily nor cheerfully re- 

 turn to normal prices. 



This condition, existing for a period of six or eight j'^ears, 

 with a reluctant return to old rates, has given an impression 

 of a general decline in agriculture which is incorrect. 



