302 NORFOLK SOCIETY. 



threatens to curtail, if not destroy the profits still realized from 

 that source, and furnishes a strong reason in favor of looking 

 more earnestly to agricultural pursuits, and especially to such 

 improvements in cultivation as will tend to produce a better 

 reward for agricultural labor. 

 / The question is often raised whether agriculture can be ren- 

 dered profitable here in competition with the fertile lands of 

 the West, and it is generally answered in the negative. Per- 

 haps this answer is wrong ; at any rate it can do no harm to 

 show what is done in the West, and then let our farmers judge 

 for themselves. The main productions of Ohio, are corn, 

 wheat, oats and hay, and of these an average crop is sixty 

 bushels of corn, seventeen of wheat, forty of oats, and two tons 

 of hay to the acre. The average prices of these productions 

 throughout the state, last year, were as follows, viz. : corn 28 

 cents, wheat 81 cents, oats 18 cents, hay $5, — or within a 

 fraction of these in each case. An acre of corn then, in Ohio 

 produces $16 80; of wheat 1 13 77; of oats $7,20, and of hay 

 $10. The cost of cultivation is much less there than here, but 

 I ^ believe that even with ordinary skill, every good farmer in 

 this county can realize more net profit from an acre of land, 

 after paying all expenses, than the highest gross income of an 

 acre in Ohio ; and if this be true, why is our agriculture suftered 

 to languish, or why is it considered an unprofitable employ- 

 ment ? 



There is another important consideration is this connection, 

 which should receive the attention of farmers, viz. : the facility 

 with which laborers can be now procured, and at low prices. 

 A large portion of the Irish and German immigrants are well 

 adapted to agricultural labor under the vigilant eye of an intel- 

 ligent overseer. These people are forcing themselves upon us 

 every year in vast numbers ; they must be supported by some 

 means, and why not make their labor productive by employing 

 it upon the soil? Such an arrangement cannot fail to be ben- 

 eficial to all parties, for while the farmer obtains the requisite 

 amount of labor at such reasonable prices as cannot fail to leave 

 him a profitable result, the poor immigrant is saved from the 

 temptation to steal, the necessity of begging, or a resort to the 



