FARMING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 87 



There is only one cow to every nine people to supply dairy 

 products ; the cheese made gives a fraction over three pounds 

 to each. Boston, with its present population, would find in all 

 the butter sold from the farm about sixteen pounds to each per- 

 son. It has been argued by some that fruit culture would be 

 overdone, and that even now apples do not pay ; yet within the 

 last few years we have imported largely of all varieties, and if 

 the amount of what has been brought into the State, both fresh 

 and preserved, foreign and domestic, could be ascertained, with- 

 out doubt it would exceed all which has been sold from it even 

 in our most fruitful years. 



An average of the hay crop gives each farm 13.2 tons ; the 

 oat crop, 14.2 bushels ; corn, 42.3 ; potatoes about 81 bushels ; 

 the wheat less than one. The English hay, divided among the 

 horses, cattle and one-fifth of the sheep, is 1.3 tons to each ani- 

 mal ; add to the English the^meadow, both salt and fresh, and 

 they would make 1.7 tons. The oats and corn fed to the horses 

 alone, in daily rations of six quarts, would last one hundred 

 and fifty-six days. If the horses were divided among the farm- 

 ers, they would have 1.9 each ; an equal division of the sheep 

 gives 3.4 ; of swine, 1.3 ; cows and heifers, 3.7 ; of all the cat- 

 tle, 4.7. Or, to proportion the stock to the population, there 

 was, in 1865, 5.6 people to each head of cattle ; 7.4 people to 

 each sheep, and 20 to each swine. 



In 1860, the United States had 1.5 people to each sheep; 1.1 

 to each head of cattle, and less than one to each swine. There 

 are obvious reasons why Massachusetts does not keep up with 

 some of the younger States in stock-raising, but is there any 

 reason why she should fall so far below the average ? Our 

 State is not so well stocked as many foreign countries, where a 

 great deal is said about land monopoly, excess of population, 

 slow progress, &c. In Great Britain there were 3.5 people to each 

 head of cattle ; France, 2.6 ; Holland, 2.7 ; Sweden, 2 ; Russia, 

 2.9. France had 1.1 population to each head of sheep ; Prussia, 

 1 ; Spain, less than a unit. Spain had 3.6 people to each head 

 of swine ; Great Britain, 7.6 ; France, 7.1 ; Austria, 4.4. 



Although the excess of the consumption of food over the pro- 

 duction is large, no one acquainted with successful farming will 

 doubt that the present and even a larger population could be 

 furnished with food from our soil, when its real productiveness 



