WASTES OF AGRICULTURE. 489 



our exhausted and abused fields refuse to furnish. The process 

 of our agriculture was that of a corporation which uses its 

 capital in dividends, or a merchant who lives beyond his means, 



and it tended to the same result — bankruptcy. The idea that 

 cropping hind necessarily exhausts it is an erroneous one; and 

 it is, moreover, a reflection upon the Creator, who has provided 

 for the support of his children, and not for their extinction by 

 the exhaustion of the powers of Nature. 



The good farmer will so manage his acres that their produc- 

 tive power will yearly increase ; and this he should do, even 

 though his acres in cultivation diminish. 



I beg, in concluding this part of my address, to present an 

 aggregate of the wastes to which I have already called your 

 attention : — 



1st. The annual income from the growth of wood 

 on three hundred and sixty thousand eight 

 hundred and fifty-five acres of land more than 

 was necessary for the crop of 1850, . . $540,000 00 



2d. Loss of labor in cultivating this excess of 



land, 1,000,000 00 



3d. Loss of land per year by exhausting culture, 1,581,572 00 



$3,165,572 00 



This waste is equal to two and nine-tenths of one per cent. 

 on the value of the farms ; and if it had been saved and added 

 to the actual income, that income would have amounted to five 

 per cent, a year. Admit that the calculations I have pre- 

 sented arc true; and admit also, what I am sure is not true, 

 that all the wastes have been stated and all the profits of 

 farming enumerated ; and even then the result to which we 

 come is not an unsatisfactory one; for we arc to consider that 

 an invest incut in land which pays for the labor and other ex- 

 penses bestowed upon it, and yields an annual income of live 

 per cent, besides, is as good an investment as can be made. 

 There is no risk of frauds and bankruptcy as when you pur- 

 chase stocks or lend money. 



It is to be considered that this result has been attained with- 



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