162 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



Of the entire area in Illinois devoted to the several o-rain 

 crops, corn and hay, although the percentage of hay ground 

 has been increasing for a decade, 80.8 per cent are yearly 

 ploughed, leaving only 19.2 per cent annually mown. The 

 area to grain, corn and potatoes was 14,811,871 acres, 

 while that mown was but 3,522,884 acres. The practice of 

 Illinois in this respect is the practice of other western States. 



In Massachusetts the area devoted to the several grain 

 crops, corn and potatoes, is 82,711 acres, while that given 

 over to the grass crop for mowing is 627,385 acres ; or only 

 11.6 per cent of the arable area is under annual tillage, 88.4 

 per cent being in hay fields. What is true of Massachijsetts 

 in this regard is true of the rest of New England. 



Two broad and markedly distinct types of agriculture are 

 standing clearly outlined before us. Let us study the effects 

 of each on the sections involved. First w^e note that the 

 western type is primarily due to two factors, one of them 

 being the genius of its mechanism, which is unsurpassed in 

 any part of this broad world in the skill of its structure and 

 application. Without it the west of to-day would have been 

 an impossibility. There manual lal)or is at a minimum, 

 machinery at its maximum use. In this lies the secret of its 

 civilization and culture, which in this respect surpasses the 

 credit given it by New Englanders. The other equally 

 essential factor, without which its machinery could not have 

 reached its great development, is its rich limestone soil, 

 ground finer in the mills of the gods than our own granite 

 soils, and more richly infiltered with organic fatness, accu- 

 mulated during long ages past. 



Cheap transportation and mechanism have enabled the 

 rapid extraction of this fertility, and its sale upon far distant 

 markets on terms that enabled the west to organize its 

 evidences of civilization and to rapidly enhance the value 

 of its lands. These forces, however, have expedited the 

 neatness and completeness of soil robbery and the rapid 

 withdrawal of the stored-up wealth of ages. The bounty of 

 all time has been centred in the enrichment of a single 

 generation. 



Let us look for a moment at the relation of this exces- 

 sive tillage on the fortunes of the west of to-day and of 



