12 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



If our farmers owning their lands in fee, had half the courage 

 of some of the tenant farmers in Europe, we should see a vast 

 difference in the looks of our fields ; in the size and number of 

 our out-buildings and barns ; in the number of cows in our 

 yards ; in tlie weight and condition of our market cattle. Then 

 agriculture would not be so far behind manufacture in profits 

 and general success. It was said by the Duke of Argyle in the 

 speech before referred to, " That no country in the world had 

 advanced so rapidly in the science and practice of agriculture 

 as Scotland, during the last century ; and that had arisen from 

 tlie industry, enterprise, and expenditure of capital of its tenant 

 farmers. The capital of great mill owners is always to be seen 

 in their great factories, warehouses, and their machinery per- 

 petually in motion, — all of which strikes the eye. Whereas the 

 capital of the tenant farmer is literally buried in the earth. In 

 a work upon agriculture of the two great border counties of 

 Roxburgh and Berwick, I find that on one farm the tenant had 

 expended in the first three or four years of his tenancy .£9,000 

 in draining and artificial manures, and on a farm of less extent, 

 another tenant farmer had expended <£5,000 in a similar 

 manner ; and unless these men had been confident that in the 

 course of their leases they would have got their money back 

 with interest, they would not as Scotsmen have so spent their 

 money." 



As an illustration of what courage and energy, directed by 

 scientific knowledge, will do in the cultivation of the soil, I 

 need but refer you to the well known Tiptree Hall Farm, of 

 Essex County, England, the property of Alderman Mechi, of 

 London, who, some twenty years ago, purchased about one 

 hundred and thirty acres of barren heath land, supposed to be 

 worthless for the purpose of agriculture-; but with an industry 

 and an amount of capital expended tliat would frighten many 

 of our boldest business men, he has converted that barren 

 waste into fields unsurpassed in riclmess, and wrought it to 

 such a state of productiveness, that he is now annually in 

 receipt from it for all his capital invested in the land and im- 

 provements, nearly three-fold the rate of interest then paid for 

 tlie use of money. For a brief description of this farm and its 

 wonderful improvements under the direction of its bold and 

 successful owner, I would refer you to the statements concern- 



