486 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



uses, the product of that year ought to have been obtained 

 from one million seven hundred and seventy-two thousand five 

 hundred and eighty-one acres — showing a loss of the use of three 

 hundred and sixty thousand eight hundred and fifty-five acres — 

 equal to about seventeen per cent, of the land in cultivation. 

 This loss is obtained upon the aforegoing calculation of crops ; 

 but, as I shall have occasion to say hereafter, the loss will ap- 

 pear much greater if compared with the returns of 1840, when 

 the actual results exceeded the estimate I have now made. 

 The first waste to be pointed out is the use of this large quan- 

 tity 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 per annum. If this wood be estimated 

 at one dollar and fifty cents per cord, you have an annual loss, 

 or waste, of five hundred and forty thousand dollars. In the 

 next place, this great quantity of land would be much benefited 

 by allowing it to lie idle ; for it is a general rule that Nature 

 yields a growth and improves the land at the same time, 

 while what often passes for husbandry leaves the land poorer 

 than it finds it. Now, then, let this area of land rest for forty 

 years untouched by the hand of man, and it will yield an ag- 

 gregate of twenty million dollars, while its productive power 

 for the future will be greatly increased. 



Then, as a consequence of this system, the farmers of Massa- 

 chusetts fence, plough, sow, and mow six acres, when they 

 ought to fence, plough, sow, and mow but five ; and, in fine, they 

 extend all their agricultural operations over seventeen per 

 cent, more land than is necessary to the result they attain. 

 Here is a manifest loss of labor — a waste where there ought 

 to be the strictest economy. It may not be easy to estimate 

 this waste accurately ; but it is plain that it materially dimin- 

 ishes the profits on this branch of industry. We have already 

 estimated the entire cost of our agricultural labor at sixteen 

 million five hundred thousand dollars. It is moderate to say 

 that one-eighth of this is wasted in the cultivation of seven- 

 teen per cent, more land than is necessary to the crop; but, 

 to avoid any unreasonable calculations, it may be well to put 

 the loss at one-sixteenth, or one million dollars. J>e it remem- 

 bered that the gross proceeds of agriculture do not exceed 



