116 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pul). Doc. 



contained the freshness, odor and lusciousness of the native 

 fields. 



In the markets of Philadelphia and Boston and Xew 

 York there is nothing that brings a higher price than pre- 

 served New England blackberries of the large, long native 

 kind. People cannot get them at any price in some cities. 

 Two years ago this summer a man came from New York 

 to Middlefield to get blackberries. He selected carefully 

 the largest black ones and canned them in the field without 

 breaking them, and took them to New York. He sold the 

 entire lot to one hotel at forty cents a quart. This is only 

 a hint to the farmers of Massachusetts as to what wealth 

 lies in the woods if they would cultivate the things that 

 grow there naturally. When I undertook to raise black- 

 berries on my farm in Massachusetts, I sent to New York 

 State and bought bushes of large-sized blackberries. They 

 were large the first year, and the next year they were 

 small. I do not know as they are of any use at all now, 

 except to shelter hens. If I had gone to the fields and cul- 

 tivated the natural varieties until they reached a large size, 

 I might have been a rich man by this time. 



The farmers of New England are not now raising what 

 the people specially need. 



I know of a single farm that I used to own, which for 

 twenty-five years, above all expenses and cares, paid four- 

 teen per cent interest. You cannot find city investments 

 that will pay anything like that. I am simply hinting at 

 what it is not now my purpose to discuss. 



The farms of New England can pay. I start out with 

 that proposition. Farms, wherever they may be, if put in 

 the right position and farmed on a large but economical 

 scale, can be made to pay. 



A few weeks ago I was in New York to deliver an 

 address, and a friend invited me to his home, and he put 

 maple crystals on the table for me to enjoy. Maple crys- 

 tals ; I inquired about them, and I found that maple sap 

 makes a larger amount of maple crystals than of old-fash- 

 ioned sugar, and they bring from seventy-five cents to a 

 dollar a pound at the confectioners. "When that man's 

 patent runs out and you can make maple crystals, you will 



