JOHN P. NORTON'S ADDRESS. 563 



stances of producing? Do we know as yet how much of any 

 one crop an acre of land can bear ? We know that single acres 

 have produced between 60 and 70 bushels of wheat, 140 or 

 150 bushels of Indian corn, 500 or 600 bushels of potatoes, 3 

 or 4 tons of hay ; can we ever hope to accomplish anything 

 like this with the majority of our acres ? If we take the 

 average crops over this State, we shall find that they do not 

 amount to more than the fourth or fifth of the high numbers 

 that I have mentioned ; it becomes clear at once then, that the 

 State does not, great though its aggregate product is, yield 

 more than a third or fourth of what it might. This is a cir- 

 cumstance which demands serious consideration ; it may not 

 be possible, by any profitable outlay, to bring all of our culti- 

 vated land into such a condition as to bear these largest crops, 

 but if we cannot quadruple at once, can we not, after a time, 

 double our crops? This question I answer decidedly in the 

 affirmative. In the county of Seneca, N. Y., according to the 

 elaborate reports of Mr. Delafield, now President of the New 

 York State Agricultural Society, the average wheat crop, some 

 fifteen years since, was hot more than from 10 to 12 bushels 

 per acre. Last year, as he himself assured me, it averaged 25 

 bushels. There is no reason to suppose that the farmers who 

 have brought about this change, will pause at 25 bushels — 

 they will fix their mark still higher ; indeed, I know that some 

 of them are not now well satisfied by anything less than 30 

 bushels. And still in the face of this, there are other counties 

 in the State where the wheat crop is decreasing from year to 

 year, and where the farmers are beginning to give it up in 

 despair as unprofitable. 



Do not such facts as these that I have now brought before 

 you, show very decidedly that there is something wrong in our 

 farming ? If they were mere assertions, resting upon my own 

 authority, it would be a different matter, but they are nothing 

 of the kind. You all know, and could, I doubt not, mention 

 instances in your several towns, of farms side by side, entirely 

 different in their productiveness ; the one of which is going 

 up, the other going down. You all know too that the same 

 features of difference may be found in towns that adjoin each 



