332 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan. 



results of which are everlastingly concealed, entombed in the 

 sacred vaults of a trust and security deposit company. This 

 continued deprecatory talk of the farmers themselves, of the 

 unprosperous condition of their profession and of themselves, 

 is supposed, but wrongfully, to be a true exposition of Mas- 

 sachusetts farming, as coming directly from those engaged 

 in it. It will not stand the test of analysis, is disproved by 

 the census returns, the assessors' books, and is based largely 

 on a false standard of values, brought on by the condition of 

 the country a quarter of a century ago. 



I quote from a paper read here seven years ago, more 

 than ever convinced of its soundness.* 



"Without any doubt, the most prevailing and best credited 

 reason among the farmers themselves, and coming nearest 

 home to them, for believing that agriculture has declined in 

 Massachusetts, is in judging from the fallacious stand-point 

 of the very high prices which they obtained for agricultural 

 products during the late war and for some years after its 

 close. Through that fearful strife, when more than a million 

 of able-bodied men from the North were changed largely 

 from producers to consumers, the government, obliged to 

 support them in the field, was, from the inadequate supply of 

 all articles of food and clothing which come from the farm, 

 forced to pay very largely for them ; and thus a scale of 

 prices was established through the country far above the 

 rates which had prevailed before the war, and which we had 

 been accustomed to receive. 



" These, with the inflation of the currency, induced among 

 us more extended cultivation ; and this, with a scarcity of 

 labor, enhanced the cost of all that we produced. This in- 

 creased production continued for some years after the war, 

 and prices were still kept up, and it was a long time before 

 they were brought down to ante-bellum times. In the long 

 run, it was a misfortune for our farmers to have received such 

 high-sounding, paper-money prices as they did for every- 

 thing they made, raised or grew during that period. 



" A factitious value was created, which could not and did 

 not continue very long after the emergency causing it had 

 passed, — but long enough to have wrought conviction in 



* Agriculture of Massachusetta, 1881, p. 379. 



