AGEIGULTURE AT HOME AND AT THE WEST. 29 



from rebelling against our wants, if only the soil has decent 

 treatment in return. Once more. Look at the capacity of 

 Massachusetts for stock-raisins:. In 1870 our total valuation 

 for live-stock was $28,250,141. Ohio had relatively about 

 the same number to the square mile. Wisconsin had less 

 than one-third the valuation to the square mile. While Illi- 

 nois, with its mammoth dairies and extensive horse-power, 

 has an average valuation of live-stock per acre in relation to 

 ours, as six to seven, or sixteen per cent, in favor of Massa- 

 chusetts. Nor does the greater relative population in Massa- 

 chusetts destroy the force of these comparisons, since the 

 surplus population of Massachusetts is eug iged in other than 

 agricultural or stock-growing pursuits. Nor do our mechan- 

 ics or factory employes, as a rule, keep horses. On the con- 

 trary, our greater population, taken into account with the 

 question of transportation, renders the force of these statis- 

 tics immeasurably stronger in our favor, since the percentage 

 of values of our crops and agricultural products is increased 

 over that of their mere quantity, by the cost of transportation 

 and the enhanced prices cremated by the demands of a con- 

 stant market. 



But our winters are cold, and the glories of our autumn 

 landscapes do not compensate the farmer for the untimely 

 touch of frost on his melon-patch or waving corn. 



What then ! Shall we go to Michigan to escape frost, 

 where the fever and ague is a summer and autumn pastime ? 

 Or to Minnesota and Arizona to get rid of cold winters, 

 where the records of the past winter show that trains were 

 blockaded for weeks by impenetrable snow-drifts, where the 

 thermometers all froze up, and men durst not be profane lest 

 their oaths should congeal on their lips ? Shall we go South 

 to cultivate sugar-cane in Louisiana, or cotton in the Caro- 

 linas ? Yet experience proves that emigration to be success- 

 ful must not disregard isothermal lines and parallels, and that 

 a climate perhaps excellently well adapted to invalids would 

 be enervating and enfeebling to the hardier vigor and nerve 

 trained in a New England climate. 



Then there is the question of transportation — just now the 

 all-absorbing topic at the West. Into this vexed question I 

 claim no prophetic insight. Nor does it materially concern 



