174 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



acres of $1,490; the chemicals to raise these crops then 

 would have cost $1,264.80, leaving a net credit of but little 

 over $200. Crops were then rated at more than they will 

 now bring, the wheat by $250, the others about the same 

 now as then, while the chemicals were rated slightly above 

 present market rates. In short, the crops of a renter's farm 

 in Missouri to-day will not sell for more than enough to 

 purchase chemicals to grow them, except as it can be 

 achieved by feeding live stock. Intensive extensive farming 

 is not now possible in the west except as a slow growth and 

 at the expense of saving liquid and solid manure and the 

 application of the same, which means an era of increased 

 cost in its methods of agriculture. This seems to be, when 

 coupled with rotations, the true direction in which the 

 western farmer should move. Wo have already seen that a 

 stronsf movement is settin2: in this direction, also more of 

 their cows heretofore kept solely for calves are being milked 

 for butter production. More of their manure formerly 

 wasted is being applied, and their corn fodder in part is 

 being more carefully conserved. Between the farms thus 

 reducing their waste and those held by renters and poor farms 

 operated l)y old methods, I presume that the time has 

 arrived or is about arriving, when over the old west, or the 

 west east of Kansas and Nebraska, farmers are maintaining 

 the present level of crops, and may be preparing to slowly 

 ascend the scale of crop returns which they have descended. 



Statistics show that New England began this movement in 

 advance of the west, and we know that market rates make it 

 possible for us to go into extensive intensive farming to 

 greater advantage, cheap farms and cheap capital, as before 

 intimated, being favoring conditions. 



In estimating the relative capacity of the east and the west 

 to produce crops cheaply in the future, it is not to be forgotten 

 that our roads are superior to those of the west, and, except 

 hills that might be circumvented and a short period of mud 

 time in the spring, hard to beat for pleasure or for business 

 without far too great, an expense, for nature has made the 

 earth of our granite soils well fitted for substantial road 

 beds. On these farms are houses, barns and substantial 

 fences that of themselves cost double the present purchase 



