1891.] PUBLIC DOCUMENT — No. 33. 137 



farming finds still an abundant illustration in the present 

 exhausted condition of a comparatively large area of farm 

 lands in New England. 



Scientific investigations, carried on during the past fifty 

 years for the particular benefit of agriculture, have not only 

 been instrumental in recognizing the principal causes of an 

 almost universal periodical decline of the original fertility of 

 farm lands, but have also materially assisted, by field experi- 

 ments and otherwise, in introducing efficient remedies to 

 arrest the noted decline in the annual yield of our most 

 prominent farm crops. As a scanty supply of manurial 

 matter, due to a serious falling off of one of the principal 

 fodder crops, was found to be one of the chief causes of less 

 remunerative crops, and thus indirectly has proved to be the 

 main cause of an increase in the cost of the products of the 

 animal industry of the farm, — milk and meat, — it is but 

 natural that the remedies devised should include, as one of 

 the foremost recommendations, a more liberal production of 

 nutritious fodder crops. The soundness of this advice is to- 

 day fully demonstrated in the most successful agricultural 

 regions of the 'world. An intensive system of cultivation 

 has replaced in those localities the extensive one of pre- 

 ceding periods ; although the ' area under cultivation for the 

 production of general farm crops has been reduced, the 

 total value of products of the farm have increased materially, 

 in consequence of a more liberal cultivation of reputed 

 fodder crops. The change has been gradual, and the results 

 are highly satisfactory. 



Viewing our own present condition, we notice that well- 

 paying grass land, good natural meadow, with rich and 

 extensive pastures, are rather an exception than the rule. 

 The benefits derived from indifferently yielding natural 

 pastures are more apparent than real ; the low cost of the 

 production of the fodder is frequently, in a large degree, set 

 off by a mere chance distribution of the manure produced. 

 A continued cultivation of one and the same crop upon the 

 same land, without a liberal, rational system of manuring, 

 has caused in many instances a one-sided exhaustion of the 

 land under cultivation. This circumstance has frequently 

 been brought about, in a marked degree, by a close 



