488 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



Oct. 



chinerj' of every description. It is by the 

 exercise of mechanical ingenuity that intelli- 

 gent labor in this country has been furnished 

 with an opportunity to be well requited, and 

 to compete with ruder forms elsewhere. And 

 in the same way may the toiling masses find 

 time for that rest and mental culture which a 

 free people demand, without interfering with 

 that industrial production upon which the 

 prosperity of a nation depends. 



It is true that this same ingenuity has been 

 applied in a very considerable degree to agri- 

 culture. The application of mechanical forees 

 to the business of the farm forms one of the 

 most interesting of modern problems, and is 

 rapidly advancing toward a great degree of 

 perfection. But we have not yet reached that 

 point at which the slow, and tedious, and 

 wearisome processes of agricultural labor in 

 many branches can be avoided. The hardest 

 toil is on our farms. The production of a 

 crop by hand labor is expensive and primitive. 

 The work of disintegrating the soil with the 

 plough is slow, and by no means in accordance 

 with this age of steam and machinery. I 

 never see an army of young naen pursuing 

 their recumbent way through a root crop, 

 without wondering when we shall be able to 

 substitute a simple machine for that slow mul- 

 titude of fingers. We cannot hope to be just 

 to agricultural labor, or to ourselves, as farm- 

 ers, until we apply such machinery to the land, 

 that one well chosen hour will bring forth what 

 IS now performed in two ; and agricultural la- 

 bor shall enjoy with every other branch of 

 industry all the ameliorating influences which 

 occupy so much of the thought of the present 



age- 



It should be remembered that as a nation 

 we have emerged from that subservient form 

 of labor, which has been profitably applied in 

 everj' age and in most great agricultural coun- 

 tries to the production of the staples for the 

 commercial markets. It is now free labor, 

 carrying with it the ownership of the soil, 

 which is to be employed and provided for. 

 And it is agricultnral labor which occupies a 

 very large proportion of the citizens of oui 

 republic. It is in the land, and in the capital 

 employed in managing it, that the largest por- 

 tion of our wealth is to be found. 



In New England alone the value of the 

 farms is estimated to be $474,306,853. The 

 value of the implements used on these farnis 

 is $16,4GG,G14. The value of the live stock 

 is $68,695,015. Making an aggregate ot 

 559,470,482. The capital invested in manu 

 factures in New England, according to the 

 latest returns, is $257,477,783, less than halt 

 that invested in agriculture. I have been un- 

 able to ascertain the number of persons em- 

 ployed in labor on the land in any of the New 

 England States, except Massachusetts, but in 

 that State alone nearly seventy thousand la- 

 * borers are occupied in tilling the soil. That 

 the vast amount of capital invested in agricul- 



ture is managed to the best advantage, and 

 that the labor employed in this industry is most 

 profitably applied, no one can for a moment 

 suppose. Consider, then, what a problem this 

 is. How shall the labor used in this great in- 

 terest be most thoroughly exercised, with en- 

 tire regard to the best interests of all classes 

 of society. That the investment of five hun- 

 dred and fifty millions in agriculture may be 

 made a good one, the experience of eveiy 

 prosperous farmer will bear witness, and it 

 only requires a general understanding of the 

 best use of labor to make the prosperity more 

 general. We should remember, moreover, 

 that the owners of the farms in New England 

 are in many instances the actual laborers on 

 the land. For these men, upon whose sound 

 bodies and well-informed minds the coming 

 generations depend for their inheritance of 

 healthy and useful faculties, let every effort be 

 made to ameliorate the condition and increase 

 the profit and the well being of agricultural 

 labor. 



High FarminK. 



As a natural consequence of the more ex- 

 tended use of machinery in all branches of ag- 

 riculture, will follow that mdre thorough and 

 careful cultivation, which I have often urged 

 as the only profitable farming known among 

 us. Wherever farming in New England is to 

 be done at all, it must be done well. A ton 

 of hay to thfe acre, and thirty bushels of corn, 

 and twenty bushels of rye, and fifteen bushels 

 of wheat, and two or tnree hundred bushels 

 of roots, are not the crops that can be called 

 remunerative here. It cannot be profitable to 

 feed a worthless animal six months in every 

 year out of the store of hay secured at the 

 cost prevailing among us. These facts are not 

 to be lost sight of. And I am confident that I 

 state what is true, when I assert that in these 

 points a constant and steady improvement is 

 going on. The number of well cultivated 

 acres is increasing. In the cultivation of gar- 

 den vegetables for market, in the production 

 of grass, and small fruits, and root crops, we 

 are making constant progress. Farmers who, 

 ten years ago, thought it impossible to raise a 

 mangel or a Swede, now follow successfully 

 these roots. Where there was one herd of 

 well-bred cattle there are now many. And I 

 have witnessed with pride and satisfaction the 

 devotion of practical farmers to the improve- 

 ment of stocK, and to the purchase of animals 

 which, a few years ago, were looked upon as 

 the special property of those who turned to 

 farming more as an extensive pleasure than as 

 a profitable occupation. 



Tomatoes for Garget. — A correspon- 

 dent in Maine recommends tomatoes as a cure 

 for garget in cows, and also says that he finds 

 a peck of them fed to a healthy milch cow as 

 beneficial as the same amount of potatoes. 

 Have others bad experience in this matter ? 



