480 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



THE DEMANDS OF AGRICULTURE. 



From an Address before the Berkshire Society. 



BY HON. INCREASE SUMNER. 



Our farmers seem too much to act upon the erroneous and 

 hurtful principle, that the fertilizing capacities of the ground 

 are all self-creating. The great fact, true beyond all contra- 

 diction, that every crop harvested from the field takes from 

 that field forever a portion of its fertilizing properties, is a fact 

 not theoretically appreciated, and practically it is disregarded. 

 For the abstraction of these properties, thus made, restitution 

 is demanded. The demand is unheeded ; and impoverishment 

 and sterility are the results. Let us view these results. Take 

 Massachusetts. She has an area of seven thousand two hun- 

 dred and fifty square miles. The facts imbodied in a resolve 

 of our Board of Agriculture will be all that is needed in this 

 connection. Referring to the Report of the Valuation Com- 

 mittee to the Legislature in 1851, the resolve states that "it 

 will be seen that, although there have been added to the lands 

 under improvement since 1840 more than three hundred thou- 

 sand acres, and although the uplands and other mowing lands 

 have been increased more than ninety thousand acres, or nearly 

 fifteen per cent., yet the hay crops have increased only three 

 per cent. — showing a relative depreciation of twelve per cent. ; 

 and although the tillage lands have been increased more than 

 forty thousand acres in the same period, yet there has been no 

 increase in grain crops, but an absolute depreciation of six 

 hundred thousand bushels; and although the pasturing lands 

 have been increased more than one hundred thousand acres, 

 yet there has been scarcely any augmentation of neat cattle ; 

 while in Bheep there has been a reduction of more than one 

 hundred and sixty thousand, and in swine more than seventeen 



