Address. 7 



ber of calculations, based on the census of 1870, pertaining to the 

 relative productiveness of capital and labor expended or used in 

 farming in the different States. The showing was by no means so 

 bad for New England as most people might think. Since that time 

 the figures for the census of 1880 have been published, and I have 

 made a number of computations, for your special instruction, based 

 on the figures for five States. 



I will give you certain data of comparison between agricultural 

 production in different States, and shall choose those western States 

 to compare with ours which stand in the strongest contrast with us, 

 and which will hold up our own case in its worst light, that the very 

 worst may be known, that, speaking figuratively, we may meet our 

 most powerful foes face to face. 



As I understand it, this Agricultural Society of the valley of the 

 Housatonic, extends its influence into two States, and I will compare 

 these two, Massachusetts and Connecticut, with a group of three of 

 the very best of the western States, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. 



Illinois stands at the very head of the Agricultural States; her 

 broad and fertile prairies stretch from Lake Michigan to the Ohio 

 and Mississippi rivers ; her land is of the easiest tillage and greatest 

 fertility. The State is old enough to be settled down into systematic 

 methods of culture. She has the largest city of the West within her 

 borders, besides many smaller ones for local markets, she is veined 

 with railroads and has navigable waters on three sides to carry away 

 her surplus. She leads all the States in the production of wheat, 

 corn and oats, and in the aggregate cereal production, and is perhaps 

 the most remarkable grain producing State in the world. She has 

 twelve hundred millions of dollars directly invested in farming, and 

 the total value of her farm productions for the census year was two 

 hundred and four millions of dollars. Ohio has almost as great fame, 

 also, with great cities and numerous towns, also veined with rail- 

 roads, with navigable waters on both sides, with twelve hundred and 

 sixty-two millions of dollars invested in farms, implements and live 

 stock, and her farm products of that year were estimated at one 

 hundred and fifty-seven millions ; it is with such competitors that I 

 propose to compare our two little, typical Yankee States. But in the 

 comparison, these two little States labor under still another disad- 

 vantage. The census statistics pertaining to farms and farm pro- 

 ductions are obtained by personal visitation of each farm, in turn, by 

 the enumerators, and have a reasonable degree of accuracy in respect 

 to all those crops and products which are the objects of special 



