472 AGRICULTURE. 



" So that, in this single county, the assessed value of the property is 

 $1,567,649.96 less than the recorded indebtedness of that county. 



"Let us come, then, to a State possessing, pre-eminently, advantages 

 superior to any other State in the Union, for the successful and profitable 

 prosecution of that ' diversification ' which is * essential to our agricultural 

 salvation.' I refer to that beautiful garden spot in the broad field of American 

 agriculture, the State of New Jersey. Diversified farming, I presume no one 

 will deny, should be most profitable where it has easy access to ready mar- 

 kets, or to great centres of population. Not only have the farmers of New 

 Jersey advanced to the front rank in all the appliances and most improved 

 systems of agriculture, but the whole State is, or should be, the kitchen 

 garden of a population, in towns and cities, within and immediately on its 

 borders, of not less than four and three-quarter millions of people. The 

 County of Salem has splendid facilities for reaching markets. It is adapted 

 to truck growing. The board of agriculture of that county made an official 

 report to the governor of the State, only a few weeks since, in response to 

 inquiries propounded by him to the various boards, in which it was stated 

 that the lands of that county had decreased in value 40 per cent. 



" Go to the States of Vermont and New Hampshire, whose every farm, 

 almost, is within the sound of the bells or whistles of villages, towns, cities, 

 workshops, mills, or factories the land where the farmer is peculiarly blessed 

 with what are popularly known as * home markets.' Where are the picturesque 

 beauty and charming loveliness that once crowned those hills, in the glories 

 of ' diversified farming ' ? The doleful answer comes back from fields aban- 

 doned to brier and brush, and from thousands of once happy homes, now 

 given over to the spider and the bat. I hold in my hand a pamphlet of 104 

 pages, descriptive of some of these abandoned farms in New Hampshire, and 

 issued by the Commissioner of Agriculture and Immigration for that State. 

 On page 9 he tells us : * There have been reported to us, by the selectmen 

 of the various towns (townships), 1442 vacant farms, with tenantable build- 

 ings. 1 The reasons given for the abandonment of these farms, whose ' large 

 and comfortable buildings, substantial fences, and permanent improvements 

 make them in every way desirable,' is, in some instances, by death of former 

 occupant, but chiefly the occupants have gone into other business. He dis- 

 tinctly states that it is for ' reasons traceable to other sources than inferiority 

 of soil.' 



" I hold in my hand a circular from the ' Commissioner of the Agricultural 

 and Manufacturing Interests ' of the State of Vermont, ' prepared,' as he says, 

 ' in answer to the many letters of inquiry relative to the unoccupied lands of 

 Vermont,' and it is but a repetition of the same sad, sad story. 



" The same appalling story may be told of the farms tributary to the Balti- 

 more market. 



" The Philadelphia Times of last week asserted that the farm lands in 

 the vicinity of that city had depreciated in value 33 to 50 per cent, within the 

 past decade. 



" Within the sweep of vision from the dome of this Capitol, with its 300,000 



