like the early miners on the gold fields, gathering the" gold ready 

 quarried to the hand. The corn and wheat and cotton lu\ve been 

 taken from the soil without return, but these drafts are sure to be 

 dishonored in the end. The account with the earth must be kept 

 good, as well as at the bankers. The agricultural practice has 

 been like that of the spendthrift, who ruins his credit in one place 

 and then tries a new sphere of action, leaving unpaid debts in 

 every town. The inventor's genius has been brought to the farm- 

 er's aid, but the main inventions are for putting in and taking off 

 crops, increasing tenfold the farmer's power to rob his soil. With 

 such a land as we have, this process may indeed be long contin- 

 ued, but it must finally come to an end. We may feed the world 

 with our grain and supply their busy looms Avith cotton, but we 

 do not now do it in the West and South by agriculture ; we do it 

 by land robbing. Any process that every year leaves the soil 

 poorer, is wanting in every element which renders agriculture a 

 science. 



And so it comes to pass that no portion of our country is so 

 favorably situated for the increase and diffusion of real agricul- 

 tural knowledge as New England. Her soil is thin and rugged. 

 Her climate is severe. It is impossible to live by land robbery 

 here. The New England soil is no long creditor. You must 

 make full returns for every crop you take, or your drafts are pro- 

 tested. Its early settlement, its broken surface and other physi- 

 cal conditions entirely prevent the Southern and Western system 

 of cultivation. A New England farm would hardly be considered 

 a respectable corn or wheat field in the W^est. Narrowed down, 

 then, by the necessity of the case, to a few acres, having a soil 

 that must be carefully manured and tilled to produce a crop, liv- 

 ing in a climate where winter reaches far into spring, and 

 early fi-osts often destroy the finest prospects of a harvest, — hav- 

 ing all these adverse conditions to contend against, the New Ens- 

 land farmer has been compelled to work more w^ith hand and 

 head than any other tiller of the soil in 'our land. These hard 

 conditions are the secret of the inci-ease of agricultural knowledge 

 among us. The W^estern man wonders where our farms are 

 found ; wonders how we can live ; says New England would have 

 been left to the bears and wolves, if the West had been known to 



