80 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



the cry annually, "to what use shall we put our farms to make them 

 profitable?" 



This condition of affairs seems to be so universal throughout the eastern 

 states, and westward to the prairie region, that we are practically upon 

 common ground, hence we can with propriety reason together and unitedly 

 act and aid each other in attempting a solution of a question of more vital 

 interest to the land owner than has ever before engaged his attention. 



In our characteristic liberality as a nation, our doors have been thrown 

 wide open, emigration without limit has been invited to come in and 

 possess the land, and we find, when too late to call a halt, that we have, an 

 over-production of almost everything required, for which our lands have 

 been supposed to be adapted, and today we meet to consider the question^ 

 "What is to be done about it?" 



RESULTS OF AGRICULTURAL EXPANSION. 



This is no wide stretch of imagination, a stubborn fact. Our honor- 

 able secretary of agriculture tells us that we have passed the limits required 

 to supply the world's want for bread, and that acreage must be reduced to 

 afford living rates to the producer. 



The presumption is that he is correct, and if so our system of agriculture 

 must be changed to conform to existing conditions or we shall have occasion 

 to regret our hestitation to act. 



The country west of lake Michigan today has the lead in all farm pro- 

 ducts, no mistake. This acknowledgement may be distasteful to us, but 

 the fact remains the same, and it is folly for us to ignore it. 



A few weeks since, fourteen boatloads of barley were unloaded where I 

 reside, produced in Dakota at an expense of sixteen cents per bushel (so 

 said the producer) and freighted through at foiirteen cents, making a total 

 cost laid down at malt house of thirty cents. As this is far below the cost 

 of producing the same grain in the state of New York, the question is, 

 what is to be the future of the barley-grower with us? In like manner we 

 might go through the whole list of grains, with any thing but a satisfactory 

 showing as to the present and future probabilities in production, because 

 of the sharp competition from the country west of us. 



But if the lands west of your great lake can produce the grains and stock 

 cheaper than you can, you may be assured they never can compete in the 

 production of all those luscious fruits that can be grown with such mar- 

 velous success in your own state, and no one at all conversant with the 

 difference of conditions in soil, climate, and all essentials for fruitgrowing, 

 will for a moment question the truth of this statement. 



Efforts without number, year after year, have been made, but the experi- 

 ments have been failures and their supply must be sought from more con- 

 genial sections. 



True it is that, now and then, limited areas of Illinois, Missouri, and 

 Kansas give crops of the more hardy varieties of apple, but these only 

 cultivate and intensify the taste for the choicer peaches, pears, plums, 

 cherries, grapes, and other fruits which you are at liberty to supply and 

 which you can grow at profits far in excess of what can be realized from 

 any other purpose to which your land can be put. 



