C. T. RUSSELL'S ADDRESS. 405 



lation supplies, and we shall not yield without a struggle. 

 Wheat, and some of the other grains, they will supply ; but a 

 thickly settled State, studded with numerous cities and manufac- 

 turing towns, makes immediate demands upon its own agricul- 

 ture, which they cannot supply, and into competition with which 

 they cannot successfully, or, at least, but disastrously enter. 



This brings me to other species of cultivation than grains, in 

 which Massachusetts is advancing. I refer particularly to the 

 root and fruit culture. The former, beyond the potato, re- 

 ceived little attention till within a few years. The cheapness 

 of transit by railroad has opened a market to the whole Com- 

 monwealth for these products. This has led to increased at- 

 tention to their cultivation. The former vegetable gardens for 

 the metropolis are transformed into house lots, and their sub- 

 stitutes are found in the valleys or on the hill sides of Wor- 

 cester and Middlesex, while her strawberry beds extend to the 

 banks of the Connecticut. From what I gather from the agri- 

 cultural reports, much attention is beginning to be bestowed on 

 the raising of root crops for cattle ; and they promise to be the 

 most profitable of all cultivation. The remark is often quoted 

 that the introduction of the turnip revolutionized English agri- 

 culture. In 1849, 2,600,000 acres were cultivated in Great 

 Britain with turnips, yielding a crop valued at £36,400,000, or 

 $182,000,000. As we approach nearer to English farming, we 

 shall see the vast consequence of this crop to us. We are be- 

 ginning to recognize it. A Worcester county farmer last year, 

 says in his statement in regard to it, that his root crop was of 

 the same importance to him, that Mr. Webster had declared the 

 turnip crop to be to England, when he said, she could not pay 

 the interest of her debt the second year, if it failed. Danvers, 

 with only 1127 acres of tillage land in 1840, devotes now 300 

 acres of the best to the raising of onions, and the denizens of 

 the sober city near her will soon be as " unable to look toward 

 that quarter, without tears in their eyes," as were the honest 

 Dutchmen from Fort Good Hoop, over the fields of Weath- 

 ersfield, in the days of Wouter Van Twiller. 



As experiment shall demonstrate, from year to year, the uses 

 and value of the roots, especially the beet, the carrot, and the 



