"Insects injurious to Vegetation," of no service to the 

 farmer in helping to extirpate them from his land and 

 his trees? And those elaborate surveys of the late ag- 

 ricultural commissioner, while they shed lustre on his 

 name, are of themselves sufficient to demonstrate, as 

 with a noon-day sun, the enlightened aid extended 

 by Massachusetts to agriculture. 



The service which can be rendered to the same 

 cause by the National Government, must be incidental 

 through her revenue laws; and these, I believe, have 

 operated to the benefit of agricultural as well as manu- 

 facturing interests. There are exceptions, I know, but 

 the articles of foreign production which come in com- 

 petition with the products of our own soil are compara- 

 tively so few, that the necessity of tariff laws to protect 

 domestic agriculture, is hardly felt or demanded. By 

 protecting manufacturing interests, a home market is 

 provided for the produce of our farms — a protection 

 more effectual than it would be practicable to accom- 

 plish by duties upon foreign agricultural productions. 

 JCncourage manufactures, and the farmers in the vicini- 

 ty of our numerous manufacturing villages have no diffi- 

 culty in disposing at good prices of their produce; pro- 

 duce, which, if not thus disposed of, would find its way 

 from the interior to the seaboard, to the detriment of 

 the farming interests here. Although the price of some 

 articles — as wool for example — may have been depress- 

 ed by the want of sufficient protection, yet agriculture, 

 on the whole, has not, as I have been able to learn, 

 suffered in consequence of any neglect of the General 

 Government to interpose in its behalf. 



Can we, then, point to any other cause which has op- 

 erated to prevent a more successful cultivation of our 

 soil? It has frequently been said, and I think justly, 

 that the majority of our farms are too large; that more 

 ground is cultivated, or attempted to be cultivated, than 

 there is ability to cultivate profitably or w^ell. The 

 time and labor expended in raising ten acres of corn, 

 would be diminished nearly one half, if bestowed only 

 on five acres; while, if the same quantity of manure as 



