318 NORFOLK SOCIETY. 



are but poorly adapted to profitable cultivation, and partly also 

 to the belief that labor in other pursuits is better rewarded. 

 But to whatever cause this may be attributed, the recent expe- 

 rience of intelligent farmers, in the increase of their crops by 

 scientific cultivation, and the consequent improvement of their 

 farms, justifies the conclusion, that with correct knowledge in 

 the best modes of husbandry, this most useful branch of hu- 

 man industry, even on our rough and rocky soils, may be ren- 

 dered as remunerative as most other employments. 



The necessity for this improvement is apparent from the rapid 

 increase of population, and the comparative decrease of agri- 

 cultural products. By the report of the valuation committee 

 for this year, it appears, that while the population of Norfolk 

 has risen from 53,000 to to 79,000, an increase of fifty per cent.; 

 and the valuation of property, from fifteen millions to forty- 

 seven millions of dollars ; an increase of more than tioo hun- 

 dred per cent, in i\\e last ten years ; her agricultural products, 

 (if we except fruits and esculent roots, of which we have no 

 returns,) have not been in any considerable degree augmented ; 

 and although some of her unimproved lands have been brought 

 under cultivation, yet the aggregate product of the cereal grains 

 raised in the county have gradually decreased, being 8000 bush- 

 els less in 1850 than in 1840. 



The present population of Norfolk county being 79,000, and 

 assuming that it requires six bushels of bread stuffs as the ratio 

 of consumption per head, we require for their subsistence, in 

 round numbers, 475,000 bushels annually. Of this we pro- 

 duce but 150,000 bushels, leaving a deficiency of 325,000 to 

 be purchased elsewhere ; and should the population continue 

 to increase in the same ratio for the next decennial term, as it 

 has for the last, and should there be no greater development 

 of her agricultural resources, she will be dependent on other 

 sections, at the end of that period, for nearly six hundred 

 thousand bushels of bread stuff's, annually, wherewith to supply 

 the wants of her inhabitants. With a modification, this rea- 

 soning will apply to some other parts of the Commonwealth, as 

 from the same report it also appears, that since 1840, there have 

 been added to the area under improvement in Massachusetts, 



