No. 4.] THE AGRICULTURAL SITUATION. 75 



Governor Hoard. Is one just as practical as the other? 



Mr. Lynde. One is just as practical as the other. You 

 can accomplish one just as quickly as the other. You will 

 get a selected cow that will make six thousand pounds of 

 butter just as quick as fifteen selected cows that will make 

 four hundred pounds. We do not all keep scrubs in 

 Massachusetts. If you will go up into Worcester County 

 I will show you a farm where there are dairy cows that 

 are not scrubs, and you will find just as good land as there 

 is in Illinois on that farm. As a man who is somewhat 

 anxious to know how he is coming out on the first of Janu- 

 ary, I have taken an account of stock. I find that to pay 

 the expenses of my family I have got to take two hundred 

 dollars out of the money that I have laid up in better days. 

 I do not happen to be very poor ; I have money enough to live 

 on without an income from the farm. And I want to say that 

 that money has been made out of that farm, and the interest 

 of it will support me handsomely without doing anything ; 

 but to-day I cannot make the two ends meet, and live as I 

 do live. We farmers have of necessity increased our family 

 expenses because others have increased theirs. The farmer 

 must live as well as others about him. If a farmer does not 

 bring up his children as well as the blacksmith and the shoe- 

 maker bring up theirs, dress them as well and send them to 

 school, he will bring up an inferior family. 



Mr. French. I cannot see the difference between over- 

 production and a lack of markets. I think we have overpro- 

 duction. There is no question about that. One year ago 

 to-day I had fifty hogs on my hands. I sent to Newburyport, 

 Portsmouth, Amesbury and Rowley, and I could not find a 

 butcher that would buy them at the going price, — six cents 

 a pound ; and the only reason was because those markets 

 were full, they did not want them. I kept those hogs for 

 six weeks. They were as fat as they could be made ; they 

 did not gain a pound, probably, after the first of September. 

 I kept them six weeks, simply waiting for an opportunity to 

 sell them at the market price, — six cents a pound. I could 

 only get five cents a pound offered for them in Boston. I 

 kept them, as I say, about six weeks, and then sold them, 

 about half a dozen at a time, at six cents a pound, but they 



