108 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



pointed out here, is the use of this large quantity of land, 

 which if allowed to run to wood merely, would yield an annual 

 average of one cord per acre, or three hundred and sixty 

 thousand cords a year. If this wood be estimated at -SI. 50 per 

 cord, you have annual waste or loss of $540,000. In the next 

 place this great quantity of land would be much benefited by 

 allowing it to be idle, for it is a general rule that nature yields 

 a growth and improves land at the same time, while that 

 called husbandry, often leaves the land poorer than it found it. 

 Now let this area of wasted land be untouched by the hand of 

 man for forty years and it will yield an aggregate of -^20, 000,000, 

 while its productive power for the future will be greatly 

 increased. 



Tiien as a consequence, the farmers of Massachusetts fence, 

 plough, sow and mow, six acres where they ought to plough, 

 sow and mow but five acres, and in fine, they extend their agri- 

 cultural operations over seventeen per cent, more land than is 

 necessary to the result they obtain. Here then is a manifest loss 

 of labor, a waste where there ought to be the strictest economy. 

 It may not be easy to estimate this loss accurately, but it is 

 plain that it naturally diminishes the profits on this branch 

 of industry. Tlie entire cost of our agricultural labor is 

 estimated at 116,000,000 ; it is moderate to say that one-eighth 

 of this is wasted in the cultivation of seventeen per cent, more 

 land than is necessary to the crop, but to avoid any unreason- 

 able calculations it may be well to put it at one-sixteenth, or 

 $1,000,000. Be it remembered that the gross proceeds of agri- 

 cultural products did not exceed $20,000,000, and of this at 

 least $1,000,000 is wasted in the misapplication of lal)or. 

 What would be said of a manufacturer who should be guilty 

 of wasting one-twentieth of his product in the application of 

 his labor ! If such attempts finally resulted in bankruptcy 

 would he be entitled to public sympathy or to his discharge ? 

 Again, this waste of labor is followed by a waste of land. 

 When we cultivate more land than we ought for the crop 

 we get, the process of cultivation is necessarily defective and 

 bad. 



There are thousands of acres pastured that should be allowed 

 to grow up to woods, to supply at some time the never ceasing 

 draft made by our farmers on the forests ; and thousands 



