FUTURE AMERICAN AGRICULTURE. 53 



FUTURE PROSPECTS OF AMERICAN AGRI- 

 CULTURE. 



From an Address before the Housatonic Agricultural Society. 



BY GEO. B. LORING. 



Ill considering the future prospects of American agriculture 

 we cannot overlook the fact that wherever the American farmer 

 goes he carries with him the right of freehold, the responsibili- 

 ties of a citizen and the sole direction of his own fortunes. In 

 this respect he is distinguished from all other people. And on 

 account of this his labor as a farmer differs, and his opportunity 

 differs, from the labor and opportunity of others. This may 

 seem to be a mere idle speculation ; but if you will imagine the 

 difference between a hundred thousand square miles of Russian 

 territory, inhabited and cultivated by serfs, and a hundred thou- 

 sand square miles of American territory, inhabited and culti- 

 vated by American freemen, you can understand precisely what 

 I mean. On the one hand, ignorance, hovels, rude implements 

 of husbandry, tribute to a master, want of ambition, an ill-cul- 

 tivated skill and ordinary crops ; on the other, intelligence, 

 neat cottages, school-houses and meeting-houses, greater and 

 less degrees of thought, a desire to be a good citizen, an oppor- 

 tunity for good farming, good crops, and a share in all the effort 

 and progress of the day commensurate with each person's ability 

 and desire. On the one hand the scythe and mattock, and on 

 the other the mowing-machine, the horse-hoe and the reaper 

 and cleaner. On the one hand brute force, and on the other 

 the most ingenious machinery. 



It is not difficult to understand, therefore, that the agriculture 

 which the American citizen carries with him must differ essen- 

 tially from that which is developed by an order of society less 

 free and less intelligent. Not that his productions will be 



