38 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



These, with garden products and small grain, are the crops 

 best adapted to Massachusetts, and promise the surest returns 

 to the farmer. They will feed our people, and multiply the 

 peaceful and happy houses in our Commonwealth. 



In addition to these, we have been urged to enter largely 

 upon the cultivation of flax, as a textile fibre, capable of making 

 us independent of all the similar productions of our neighbors. 

 It is possible that it might increase the wealth of the farming 

 community. But we should remember that until we raise food 

 enough for home consumption, we can hardly expect to 

 compete with the great regions of the earth in which textile 

 crops grow almost spontaneously. I doubt whether we could 

 compete with cotton growers ; and although we are quite 

 indignant with cotton just now, still I believe some measures 

 more strenuous and efficient than raising flax in Massachusetts, 

 will be required to remove the difficulties which attend it ; and 

 I believe, moreover, that it is cheaper, and more manly, and 

 more patriotic- to fight for our cotton until we get it, than it is 

 to undertake to supersede its use by the cultivation of a plant 

 which has been rejected by every high system of agriculture, 

 and is confined chiefly to regions where the soil is poor and the 

 people arc poorer. It requires nearly all our agricultural labor 

 in the Northern States to feed our mouths ; as in 1855, we 

 exported only eight million bushels of corn out of nearly eight 

 hundred million bushels raised, and the same proportion of 

 wheat, and all our other agricultural products. "We are asked 

 to add to these Northern products flax enough to take the 

 place of one million bales or five hundred million pounds of 

 cotton, our annual consumption. We cultivate now thirty-one 

 million acres of corn, and eleven million acres of wheat ; and 

 if we would raise flax enough to accomplish what its advocates 

 promise, we must add one million acres to those already under 

 cultivation, allowing each acre to yield five hundred pounds. 

 Flax is a troublesome and exhausting crop. Englan d imports 

 all she uses from Russia, and in spite of repeated premiums, 

 has failed to introduce it into her own kingdom, because corn 

 pays a larger profit. It has never been a profitable crop in this 

 country. 



To bring it into competitten with cotton would be a some- 

 what difficult matter. Let us consider a few facts. Tlie 



