130 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan. 



places on the globe that from time immemorial I wanted to 

 know more about. One place was New Orleans, and the 

 other place was New England. When I was a boy I took 

 Horace Greeley's advice, and went West. I have wrestled 

 with the gentle zephyrs of Iowa many a day, and I learned 

 some valuable lessons in that far-off country. I have 

 returned to New York State, but there I have learned but 

 little of New England. For forty years I waited to see 

 New Orleans, and I have waited sixty years to find out 

 something about New England. 



I felt that your Secretary was kind when he sent me an 

 invitation to address the leading agriculturists of this great 

 Commonwealth ; he was kinder, when he intimated that I 

 would be expected to speak not more than thirty minutes ; 

 but kindest, when he said that time would be given for 

 questions and discussions after the paper was read ; for now 

 I have but to set the stakes, strike out the lands, and then 

 we will all " set to," and plough out the middles. 



During the decades from 1840 to I860 agriculture was 

 greatly depressed. Our inherited, unrestrained desire for 

 land resulted in destroying the forests on millions of acres 

 of steep hill-sides and sandy plains, which contained but 

 little fertility, and which could yield remunerative returns 

 at best for only brief periods. The cities were small and 

 few ; the wants of the consumers were simple, and easily 

 satisfied ; producers were many ; the home market glutted ; 

 the foreign, distant and expensive to reach. 



Corn and oats in Illinois and Iowa in some of these years 

 could with difficulty find a market at from ten to twelve 

 cents per bushel, many other products were correspondingly 

 low. Wild-cat money and bad banking laws in many of 

 the States resulted in giving the people a currency in which 

 few had confidence, and which could be used outside of the 

 State in which it was issued only at a ruinous discount. 

 Government was borrowing money at twelve per cent, 

 individuals at still higher rates. Carpenters and masons 

 received from one dollar and fifty cents to one dollar and 

 seventy-five cents, farm hands (except in harvest) fifty cents 

 to seventy-five cents per day, and board. In the midst of 

 these difficulties, taking no thought for the future, we went 



