38 AMERICAN FARMS. 



— a change that demands searching inquiry ? Have we 

 not in it a question quite equal to the vexed question 

 between labor and capital, the unequal distribution of 

 land ? Or, are they not parts of one great question ? 



But, let us review the opinions held thirty years ago, 

 as to the relative importance of agriculture in some of 

 the New England States. Our eye rests upon a volume 

 of the New E?ig land Farmer for the year 1854, and from 

 an editorial we extract the following emphatic passage : 



"In the year 1850, the improved land of the State 

 (Massachusetts) amounted to 2,133,436 acres, and the 

 cash value of the farms was $109,076,347 ; the imple- 

 ments and machinery were worth $3,209,584 ; the value 

 of the live-stock was S9, 649, 7 10 ; and the value of rye 

 and Indian corn of that year was $2,857,732 ; to say 

 nothing of hay, fruit, root crops, which would be as 

 much more. These sums find the farmer investing 

 capital and producing crops in a single year to the 

 amount of one hundred and twenty-seven millio7is six 

 hundred and fifty-one thousand one hundred a?id five 

 dollars. 



" The other principal industrial pursuits gave, for the 

 same period, in the cotton and woollen manufacture, in 

 pig-iron, castings, wrought-iron, malt and spirituous 

 liquors, and tanneries, an aggregate of eighty millions 

 three hundred thousand nine hundred a7id fifty -four dollars, 

 leaving a balance of forty-seven millions three hundred 

 and fifty-one dollars in favor of the industry of farming." 



In this State, the value of the productions of Indian 

 corn, wheat, and rye has fallen from $2,750,000 in 1854 

 to $1,750,000 in 1887. The value of live-stock has risen 

 from $9,649,710 in 1850 to only $12,957,004, or an 

 ER^erage yearly increase of $89,386 : not quite one per 

 cent, per year. 



