SECRETARY'S REPORT. 117 



Your committee, although endeavoring according to their 

 ability, and the time and means at their disposal, to discharge 

 the duty which the Board assigned them, have not considered 

 it important or desirable to undertake critically, or to any great 

 length, an investigation of the various diseases and enemies of 

 the wheat plant, or of their causes and remedies. The most 

 thorough and elaborate examinations have been made by natu- 

 ralists and scientific men on the diseases and enemies of wheat, 

 and the full result of those examinations given to the world. 

 A committee of the Board, also, have the diseases of vegetation 

 under their especial examination, who will undoubtedly make a 

 thorough investigation of the diseases of this important grain. 

 We have therefore endeavored to make some inquiries into the 

 causes of the comparatively rare cultivation of wheat in this State, 

 its present condition, its future prospects and encouragements. 



Massachusetts is within the limits of the wheat-growing regions 

 of the world ; yet wheat is not one of our staple crops. And 

 though Canada, on the north, raises on the average between 

 sixty and seventy millions of bushels annually, and New York, 

 on the west, and Pennsylvania, on the so\ith, raise large quan- 

 tities for exportation, we, in Massachusetts, do not produce 

 enough for our own bread. With a climate and soil essentially 

 the same as that of countries where this cereal is successfully 

 cultivated, producing not only enough for home consumption, 

 but also for large exportation, we yet fail to raise it in any 

 considerable quantity, and purchase in other States nearly all 

 we consume. 



In Great Britain, six bushels of wheat are allowed for the 

 usual consumption of each inhabitant. In this State, we 

 imdoubtedly consume more. But taking this as the data, our 

 population yearly require six million eight hundred thousand 

 bushels for their sustenance. Of this quantity, there is raised 

 on our own soil, according to the returns of 1855, but forty 

 thousand three hundred busliels. We are therefore obliged 

 yearly to purchase abroad six million seven hundred and fifty- 

 eight thousand four hundred and ninety bushels, at a cost of 

 more than ten millions of dollars. According to the returns 

 of the last industrial statistics, we cultivate, on the average, 

 two thousand six hundred acres of wheat. But to produce 

 enough for our bread, would require four hundred and twenty- 



