120 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



off, the value of the straw increased, — I will not give the 

 per cent, hut it was a very large amount ; and that, whereas 

 we did not have more than three-fourths as many cattle as 

 we had ten years before, there was an increase in the value 

 of cattle manure. How do you account for these things? 

 I can explain it. The census for 1875 was wrong. It was 

 incorrect. It did not take in the productions from the farm 

 that ought to have been taken in. When we came to make 

 our census of 1885, the census people of the time consulted 

 the secretary of the Board of Agriculture. We concluded 

 that we would rake this Commonwealth with a comb, so that 

 not a straw would escape. We put in straw, corn fodder, 

 manure, cider, vinegar, apples, large and small, cut flowers, 

 the productions from cows and cattle kept in cities. One of 

 the astonishing features is that two or three of the cities had 

 the largest dairies of the State. I merely show that part of 

 it, and I do not propose to go further in it. I merely put 

 in that fallacy. 



One more fallacy, sir. That is, that under some political 

 change there would be an increase in the value and the prod- 

 uct of wool. I wish to say here, and I am open to contra- 

 diction, that wool is not any cheaper to-day relatively than 

 any other farm product, and, if it is increased by any act of 

 law that cannot be applied to other farm products, it only 

 means that 96 or 98 per cent of the farmers of the country 

 shall be taxed more for their cloth in order that 3 or 4 per 

 cent may have a higher price for this farm product, w^iich 

 after all is l)ut a by-product. The average number of sheep 

 kept on the farms in Ohio is only 35, and in Michigan, 

 which is a larije wool State, the averao:e is not over 18 to 

 the farm. I dislike talking politics. One thing I have 

 always noticed is, when you talk about increasing people's 

 taxes by protection, that that is not politics, but if you talk 

 about lowering them, that is politics. I am talking as a 

 farmer, not as a politician. This question of putting a 

 higher duty upon wool is one of the rascalities that the 

 farmers have got to be heard upon, because you cannot 

 increase the value of other things. 



The forms of Massachusetts are suffering. The best and 

 most scientifically founded agriculture in the world is in the 



