16 Address. 



be articles which they will forward in large quantities. We had 

 better do nothing to compete with, or stop this inflowing stream of 

 western products of prime necessity, but receive it. especially the 

 grain, and make it aid in the improvement of our fields, while we 

 give our attention to products less exhausting and more profitable. 

 Not that a Massachusetts farmer cannot make as much money on, or 

 raise a bushel of corn and wheat, and put it into the market as cheap 

 as the farmer of Illinois or Iowa, if he will pursue the same mode of 

 cultivation and live in the same manner, but that he can, in conse- 

 quence of his home market, and their follies, produce crops with 

 which they cannot compete, and make more money. Grain, beef, 

 pork, while they are articles of prime necessity, go but a little way 

 in supplying the wants of a family in a New England village, and 

 for which they are able and willing to pay. Choice vegetables of 

 every variety, early and late, fruits, large and small, the old stand- 

 ard kinds and the new varieties, roots of every kind, forage, milk, 

 butter, cheese, young meat, veal, lamb, poultry, these are all in 

 <'rcat and increasing demand ; they are preferred, and sought for the 

 home supply, and no attempt is, or will be made to obtain them from 

 abroad, so long as, or if they can be procured here. 



The condition of our soil to-day is such that no efforts of ours 

 would avail to furnish all the food of our people, even if it was de- 

 sirable. It is undoubtedly our wisest course, to thoroughly under- 

 stand the wants, present and prospective, of our consuming popula- 

 tion. The capabilities of our soil, the crops we can grow best and 

 preserve its fertility, the special advantages and disadvantages of our 

 respective locations, for supplying some one or more of the 

 wants of the market of our immediate neighborhood. It is impossi- 

 ble to say what should be the leading crop or crops of each individual 

 farmer. This matter each must decide for himself according to sur- 

 rounding circumstances. As a rule it is well, but not imperative, 

 for each and every farmer to supply from his soil all the food of his 

 family which it is capable of producing, as this can be done as an 

 adjunct to his main business of producing other crops for sale, and 

 by the rotation necessary to his process, of culture. In this way it 

 may be well for him at times to grow the wheat for family consump- 

 tion, for there arc few farms in the State on which, in this sense, it 



