136 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan. 



Residts of Mistaken Policy. 



It will be found, when the day of reckoning fully comes, 

 that no class has been benefited by this policy excepting 

 speculators and land-jobbers, while the farming classes, both 

 East and West, will suffer most. 



The border farmer, who is compelled to sell his corn at 

 fifteen cents per bushel, or wheat, beef and pork at corre- 

 spondingly low figures, all produced by a ruinous exhaustion 

 of his soil and of his own vital energies, is surely deserving 

 of our sympathies. Scarcely less so is the Eastern farmer, 

 who is struggling to pay for his home, toiling under a 

 heavy mortgage indebtedness, while the markets in 'which he 

 must sell his wares are broken and ruined, the result of 

 such an unstatesmanlike policy. 



Protest against this Policy. 

 Yet, notwithstanding these deplorable results, the govern- 

 ment seems to be committed to a o:ioi:antic scheme for irriga- 

 tion, which, if consummated, will open many more millions of 

 acres of the public domain, and put into the pockets of polit- 

 ical vandals other millions of public treasure. I ask that 

 you, the intelligent farmers of Massachusetts, in a mass lead 

 in presenting an earnest protest to the powers that be, 

 against the continuance of this mistaken policy. 



The Evil a Permanent One. 



The present generation cannot reasonably hope to see the 

 vast areas already overrun, fully and properly occupied, and 

 our markets so developed as to permanently relieve them 

 from this ruinous pressure. A thorough development of our 

 agriculture would more than double our present production 

 on lands now occupied. 



We may safely conclude, that these adverse conditions 

 have come to stay. They are not, as in the past, the result 

 of temporary causes. Henceforth, the question of success in 

 agriculture is to be a question of " the survival of the fit- 

 test," dependent upon intellectual as well as muscular force. 

 Old methods must "go to the wall," and there is no help 

 for it. The best of skill, stock and appliances must be sub- 



