2 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTUKE. 



ing buffalo. At last he is enabled to procure a few cattle ; 

 his fortune is begun. Is he prepared so long to endure sep- 

 aration from all that goes to make life pleasant to a social 

 being, ultimate success is well-nigh certain. This is not an 

 exaggerated picture. Many a stock -farmer who can count 

 his herds and flocks by the hundred, thus began; and who 

 will doubt that such energy and perseverance would win its 

 way at home ? 



The grand distinction between the Eastern and Western 

 beginner of farm-life — and I admit its force — is, that the 

 pioneer, having once for all placed himself under conditions 

 of privation and self-denial, is compelled to stay, or suffer 

 the mortification of a retreat ; while the New Englander must 

 form and control the drift of circumstance, and from amidst 

 the temptations and enervating influences of advanced civili- 

 zation, stand forth strong and earnest in pursuit of a success 

 only to be earned at the "price of eternal vigilance." 



I have said the pioneer must go far ; and this includes the 

 fact, not everywhere recognized, that the older-settled por- 

 tions of the West are no longer to be advantageously tilled 

 by the so-called skimming process. That no soil can long 

 remain in its natural condition while growing crops, is a self- 

 evident truth ; and to supply the exhausted elements of 

 fertility, capital is necessary. And thus it is seen that 

 with the one exception just mentioned, of stock-raising where 

 pasture is common, agriculture, as much as any other pursuit, 

 is concerned with capital, which here represents not only 

 labor, but fertilizing power. 



The amount of capital that may be profitably employed in 

 working a given farm, though not a simple question, is yet 

 roughly determined by the price of land, which depends 

 upon locality (all of which I shall endeavor to show farther 

 on) ; and thus agriculture is reduced to the same basis as 

 any other industry upon which capital is engaged, the pecu- 

 niary returns depending, other things being equal, upon the 

 amount of capital invested ; which amount is here denoted 

 by the value of the land employed, together with the cost of 

 working it. 



The main difficulty in the comprehension of this question 

 lies in the fact that a man is apt to think, because a farm is 



