29 



us that superphosphate of lime has come to sustain such a 

 relation to the turnip crop and forage grasses of England, that 

 the crops of meat and grain have been increased to the same 

 extent as if an addition of one-fifth had been made to her 

 arable land. For nearly a century she has been an importer 

 of bones, gathering them even from the battle fields of Europe 

 and the Sicilian catacombs. Our agriculture still has no such 

 demand for bones as to make it unprofitable for her to import 

 them in ship loads from America. She has loaned forty mil- 

 lion dollars of the public money for the encouragement of 

 drainage, and immense amounts of private capital have been 

 expended in these improvements. Her systems of crops, of 

 root culture, of sheep husbandry, her improved breeds of cat- 

 tle, are in themselves studies, and the results of experiment, 

 enterprise and skill. One obstacle after another has been met 

 and overcome. When, on the repeal of the corn laws, cheap 

 produce from abroad brought a pressure upon English farmers 

 like that which Western produce and railroads brought upon 

 the farmers of Massachusetts, they did not succumb, but put 

 forth more strenuous exertions, and by improved methods and 

 greater prudence, succeeded in raising wheat at fifty-seven 

 shillings, with the same profit as before at seventy shillings 

 per quarter. By these means, the English farmer bears the 

 yearly burden of twenty-five dollars per acre in rent and 

 taxes, and gradually attains a competence. 



I do not cite these facts to show that the English sys- 

 tem of agriculture is a model, which it is either possible 

 or desirable for the American farmer to imitate. That sys- 

 tem as a whole, and especially in its relation to labor and 

 the tenure of land, grows out of the structure of English 

 society, which in most essential respects differs from our 

 own. I cite them for the purpose of showing that the new 

 methods, processes and resources I have indicated, are real 

 and substantial accessions to the farmers' power, that they 

 are not the mere inventions of men who can afford to saci-ifice 

 to the sciences, but that they have become indispensable in a 



