234 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



capable not only of feeding their own people the best of 

 any in the world, but also capable of feeding the world be- 

 side ; and here is the indication in these figures of the great 

 demand that is coming to us from all over the world for the 

 products of our soil. While these figures are almost be- 

 yond our full comprehension, the possibilities for improve- 

 ment in quality along many lines, and of higher value 

 received for better quality in everything, is beyond our 

 most active imagination. With our vast area of affricul- 

 tural land, our methods in farming have not only been crude, 

 but most destructive in their effects. We have taken out 

 crops for upwards of two centuries, and without reference 

 to restoring the loss in plant food that results in long and 

 continued production. When the soil has failed to yield 

 profitably, as at the east, we have moved west, and on the 

 rich virgin soil there continued our destructive process. 



It was my privilege, only a week ago, to meet the Cham- 

 ber of Commerce of Quincy, 111., to discuss the question of 

 land values at the west. While going over thousands and 

 thousands of acres of the rich prairie soil of Illinois and the 

 lower Missouri, inspecting many acres of orchards, I said 

 that the time would be not far in the future when the west 

 would again hear from New England. The same processes 

 of destruction are going on at the west, I might say even 

 more rapidly than they have proceeded here, because much 

 of the west has not the advantages which we have here in 

 the east in the deposits of rock which are continually renew- 

 ing our soil, improving it, regardless of our destructive 

 processes in production ; and I believe it is true that when 

 the west shall have failed, — and the soil is failing rapidly, 

 and much that used to produce thirty-five bushels of wheat 

 to the acre, many, many acres to-day arc not producing 

 above eight or ten, — New England soil will be by no 

 means exhausted. It is depleted somewhat, but nowhere 

 near exhausted, and will never be; so that the future, as 1 

 look upon the question of New England agriculture, is as 

 promising as in any section of the country at the present 

 time. 



The first problem, then, in adding value to land, is to 



