346 Percy Wells Bidwell 



But the Explanation Given was not Sufficient. 



The reasons for the foregoing state of affairs generally given by 

 contemporary and later writers on the subject may be grouped under 

 three chief heads: (1) the ignorance of the farmers of what we 

 now recognize as the fundamental principles of scientific agriculture; 



(2) the conservatism which bound them down to traditional methods; 



(3) the cheapness of land and the consequent high price of labor. 

 All of these conditions undoubtedly existed and each contributed 

 in its own way to prevent progress, yet none of them, it seems to 

 me, would alone, or in combination with the others, have been able 

 to prevent progress in agriculture if it had not been for the presence 

 of another and more decisive condition, the lack of a market. 



Inefficiency of Agriculture was not Due to Ignorance. 



The typical inland farmer was undoubtedly ignorant of the best 

 methods of tillage and of fertilization, and of the fact of increased pro- 

 ductivity which the application of these methods would bring. But 

 this was not a necessary or an inevitable state of affairs. The knowl- 

 edge of the improvements which had been accomplished abroad 

 was accessible in this country. Beginning with the publication of 

 the first of the Reverend Jared Eliot's Essays on Field Husbandry 

 in New England, in 1749,^ an unwearying attempt had been made by 

 men of education to bring to the attention of farmers in the Eastern 

 states, and particularly in New England, the importance of changing 

 their methods. The result had been the publication of a respectable 

 body of literature on the subject, including at least sixteen works^ 

 of a general nature, in which the contrast between the methods em- 

 ployed at home and abroad were pointed out, the improvements in- 

 troduced by Tull, Bakewell and Young were outlined and discussed 

 in simple language, and suggestions were made for adapting their 

 discoveries to the conditions prevailing here. Besides these there 

 were published a considerably larger number of pamphlets, dealing 

 with special branches of the agricultural industry, such as the use 

 of gypsum as a fertilizer, the advantages of rotation of crops, the 

 breeding of sheep and the management of bees. The agricultural 

 societies were spreading similar information through their pub- 

 lished reports, and such periodicals as The Old Farmer's Almanack 



' These essays, six in all, appeared separately in the years 1749-1759, and were 

 in 1760 published in collected form. 



2 About half of these were published before 1800. For a partial list of titles 

 of the general and special works on agriculture published in this country before 

 1815, see Appendix C. 



