NEW ENGLAND FARMING. 51 



You must remember that few New England farmers are rich. 

 The capital invested in their occupation is spread over a very 

 large surface. They own their farms, and unlike the farming 

 population of other countries, where serfs and peasants are 

 rooted in the soil, and are transmitted as a part of landed pos- 

 sessions, they have the world open before them from which 

 to choose, with the capacity and prospects of freemen. The 

 greatest crop raised hitherto on tliese farms is a host of 

 active, thriving, busy men, engaged in the professions, toiling 

 in business, building up our cities and extending our commerce. 

 And it is because the active capital of our community has been 

 poured into other channels, that agriculture has been left to 

 furnish that important product, which, while it sustains her 

 associates, exhausts herself. Perhaps our fields have been 

 exhausted, perhaps the average of our crops has decreased, 

 perhaps our agriculture is on the decline ; but, when we con- 

 sider what our farms have done for us, what a robust and busy 

 host they have sent abroad, to create home markets for the 

 consumption of our products, we shall learn how by the law of 

 compensation, agriculture will one day, if it has not done so 

 already, reap the harvest she has prepared by her first sowing 

 of bone and muscle, intelligence and activity, in the busy walks 

 of life. 



Yes, gentlemen, the intelligence, activity, and force of our 

 people has led them away from agriculture, until of necessity 

 the wave is beginning to return. New England farming is just 

 coming out of a transition state. It was once almost the only 

 occupation of our people, and so continued, until capital and 

 industry were averted from it to manufactures and commerce, 

 by whose operations we have been enriched and prepared for a 

 new farming career, now, I think, just commencing. The 

 fact that we do not produce enough to support our own popu- 

 lation, simply proves that we have been able to employ our- 

 selves more profitably than in competing with the cheap and 

 easy agriculture of the newer States. And it is only when 

 our population is forced back upon ourselves, and capital 

 has reached its limits in other branches of trade, that our pres- 

 ent system of common farming will cease, and high farming 

 begin. 



