334 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan. 



room. He will find the controlling men on the railways, 

 those who, commencing at the car-brake, have risen to be the 

 managers and superintendents of great lines of travel. These 

 are the overflow, the surplus boys who had not room on the 

 old homesteads. 



If, then, this searcher after information will consult our 

 most admirable State census, he will find that the popula- 

 tion has more than doubled in less than forty years ; that, in 

 the past ten years, from 1875 to 1885, the population has 

 increased nearly 300,000; that, since 1865, the cultivated 

 acres have increased from 881,402 to 939,260,-57,858 

 acres ; that every county in the State shows an increased 

 average value of land and buildings on farms in 1885 over 

 1875. Farms in the vicinity of the, cities, with their increas- 

 ing population, are greatly enhanced in value ; and this is a 

 large item, considering that forty years ago we had but four 

 cities, and now have twenty-five, with people to be fed 

 numbering in each from 15,000 to 400,000. The average 

 value of farms, gardens, orchards and the buildings thereon, 

 is each $4,112.83 for 1885, as against $3,660 in 1875,— 

 or $452.83 gain on each farm. 



The special importance and interest of this are enhanced by 

 the fact that, in our system of farming, the Massachusetts 

 farmer detests the relation of landlord and tenant ; the 

 former he seldom is, the latter he will not be. He will have 

 his farm in fee simple, even if he has to temporarily embel- 

 lish it with a mortgage ; and the fact that many do that, and, 

 by industry, economy and prudence, successfully throw 

 off that burden, proves that even under those conditions 

 farming can be made to pay. The opinion of practical farmers 

 on this landlord and tenant question is shown by the fact that 

 while the whole number of farmers is 40,112, there are but 

 3,243 of those as tenants. The whole number of persons 

 engaged in agriculture in 1865 was 68,538 ; in 1875, 70,945 ; 

 and in 1885, 77,661. 



I find another evidence of the general prosperity of the 

 farms, by the courtesy of the Secretary of State, who to 

 my inquiry replies that the whole number of insolvent 

 debtors returned to his olEce for the ten years past was 

 5,379, of which he is glad to say only 121 farmers appear in 



