186 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



this matter of clearing the land in the old State of Massa- 

 chusetts, especially in Berkshire, — perhaps more interested 

 in that than in any point I have heard mentioned. But what 

 I want to get at is this, whether you, professor, or any of 

 the members of the Board, would, after raising up a family 

 of daughters, throw them on the world with any of these 

 Amherst young men you know of to get a living on any one 

 of these rocky farms. I take, among other papers, the 

 "New England Homestead," and lately there has been more 

 or less said about the mortgage lifters on the farm. I find 

 almost all of those men have borrowed one, two or three 

 thousand dollars, and they have spent more on those farms 

 than they are w^orth. I am a farmer myself, and I have 

 wrested my living from the farm. I have no boys, but if 

 I had I would not advise them to clear up this rocky land. 

 It seems to me there is plenty of good land or better land 

 than this rocky land that can be brought under cultivation, 

 and especially near a city. I believe that a farmer, if he is 

 interested in farming, can go into intensive farming and 

 make more money than he can drawing rocks. Why, it 

 staofjrers me, Mr. Chairman, to think what our forefathers 

 did in this State. Just think of the stone walls they built. 

 My labor costs me on an average $1.50 a day, and I cannot 

 afford to lay rocks in a stone wall, for it tumbles down. I 

 cannot aflbrd to do it. 



Professor Sanborn. The gentleman asks a question 

 about marrying our daughters. I would like to ask the 

 audience where you would prefer to trust the fortunes of any 

 of your daughters, — as the wife of a man in the city, a paid 

 agent of somebody to whom he is subservient, telling him to 

 go here and there, with all the chances and mischances of 

 life, or as the wife of a man who has a farm, with the knowl- 

 edge and ability to carry it on successfully, and who is 

 sufficiently cultivated to read the literature of the day ? I 

 do not think there is any great fortune in farming. Do not 

 understand me that way. The time has gone by for wealth- 

 getting in a short time on this continent. We have gone 

 over our continent ; we have found our mines, built our 

 railroads and established our industries. The period of get- 

 ting wealthy in a night — mushroom wealth — has passed 



