18 



domestic seeds, overlooking entirely the importance of 

 appropriations and endowments of land or money for 

 a higher order of schools to educate men for teachers 

 and professors, in a science so important to our nation's 

 best and highest interests in promoting the arts of peace. 

 Shall not our Commonwealth arise to her most im- 

 portant interest, the cultivation of the soil, wherein lies 

 the inheritance of future generations ? It is a lament- 

 able fact that a large proportion of our lands are worn 

 and unproductive; probably have depreciated in capacity 

 to produce, at least one per cent, a year for the last fifty 

 years. Our pastures and tillage lands, with a large 

 proportion of our meadows, do not yield more than 

 one half of what they are capable. 



Although there have been added in this Common- 

 wealth to the lands under improvement since 1840,. 

 300,000 acres, and although the upland and other mow- 

 ing lands have been increased more than 90,000 acres, 

 or nearly 15 per cent., and the tillage lands increased 

 more than 40^000 acres in the same period, yet there 

 has been no increase in grain crops, but an absolute 

 depreciation of 600,000 bushels. The pasture lands 

 have been increased 100,000 acres, yet there has been 

 scarcely any augmentation of neat cattle, while there 

 has been a reduction of 160,000 ; and of swine, more 

 than 17,000. This shows plainly the condition of agri- 

 culture in Massachusetts as a whole, and with an in- 

 creasing population, with good markets, and every 

 facility for improving and restoring our lands, it is truly 

 an alarming state of things. 



How appropriate is the inquiry. What are the causes 

 that have brought about the depreciation of our soik^ 



