OUR PRODUCING INDUSTRIES. 59 



MUTUAL DEPENDENCE OF OUR PRODUCING 

 INDUSTRIES. 



From an Address before the Berkshire Agrioultural Society. 



BY LEVI STOCKBRIDGE. 



Now, can we provide for this demand, or for any, and what, 

 portion of it ? We should remember what the great producing 

 West will be sure to supply, and avoid competing with their 

 special crops and mode of culture. The system of the com- 

 peting culture is of the utmost importance, for no man who is so 

 managing his land that it is constantly increasing in fertility, 

 can compete with him whose plan and practice is to take up 

 rich fields, produce crops at the expense of the soil, and to sell 

 out and remove when its fertility shall measurably fail. The 

 West, with the fact looking them full in the face that their crops 

 are annually decreasing, are selling grain, and in all probability 

 are bound to do so, so long as there remain so many untilled 

 acres to be despoiled. Pork and beef also, the feeding at home 

 of which is a great improvement in their mode of culture, will 

 be articles which they will forward in large quantities. We had 

 better do nothing to compete with or stop this inflowing stream 

 of Western products of prime necessity, but receive it, especially 

 the grain, and make it aid in the improvement of our fields, 

 while we give our attention to products less exhausting and more 

 profitable. Not that a Massachusetts farmer cannot make as 

 much money on, or raise a bushel of corn and wheat, and put it 

 into the market as cheap as the farmer of Illinois or Iowa, if he 

 will pursue the same mode of cultivation and live in the same 

 manner, but that he can, in consequence of his home market, 

 and their follies, produce crops with which they cannot compete, 

 and make more money. Grain, beef, pork, while they are 



