15 



increased, lands which half a century ago were unsurpassed in 

 productiveness, and seemingly inexhaustible, have visibly de- 

 teriorated. AVhole States have been impoverished. In our 

 own Commonwealth, the average of the crops of corn, 

 wheat, rye, barley, oats and hay, was quite low in 1807, 

 but it was some fifteen per cent, lower in 1855. In New 

 York, where the average crop of wheat eighty years ago was 

 from twenty-five to thirty bushels, it is now only fourteen 

 bushels per acre. Ohio, which eighty years ago presented to 

 the farmer a rich unbroken soil in the wild state of nature, 

 now yields a diminishing average, per acre, of twelve bushels 

 of Avheat. In 1850, the average yield of wheat per acre did 

 not exceed, seven bushels in Virginia and North Carolina, and 

 five bushels in Alabama. 



It is a well authenticated fact, that of the one hundred and 

 sixty-three million acres of improved land in the United States, 

 three-fourths receive no return of the necessary elements of 

 vegetable growth that are carried off by the annual harvest. A 

 distinguished agriculturist calculated in 1850, the annual waste 

 of these elements to be equal to the mineral constituents of 

 fifteen hundred million bushels of corn, and that the amount of 

 only two of these elements thus lost in a single year, was 

 worth at their market price, twenty million dollars. " To 

 suppose," says the author ol these estimates, " that this state 

 of things can continue, and we, as a nation, remain prosper- 

 ous, is simply ridiculous. AVe have as yet much virgin soil, 

 and it will be long ere we reap the reward of our present im- 

 providence. It is merely a question of time, and time will 

 solve the problem in a most unmistakable manner. What with 

 our earth-butchery and prodigality, we are each year losing the 

 intrinsic essence of our vitality. Our country has not yet 

 grown feeble from this loss of its life-blood, but the hour is 

 fixed, when if our present system continue, the last throb of 

 the nation's heart will have ceased, and when America, Greece 

 and Rome, will stand among the ruins of the past." Is it to- 

 day, I would ask, quite certain that our country has not al- 



