40 AMERICAN FARMS. 



It is admitted now, on all sides, that farm industry is 

 not progressing in New England ; rather, fast losing 

 ground. We have found, however, that not long since 

 the foremost public men of New England thought other- 

 wise. Not only were they satisfied with the progress of 

 their time, but were sanguine believers in a prosperous 

 future for the farmers of their several States. 



The following, a portion of Governor Fairbanks' ad- 

 dress to the General Assembly of Vermont, in session 

 December, i860, takes the same view : 



" From an abstract of the seventh United States cen- 

 sus, it appears that in 1850 there were in this State 

 2,600,409 acres of improved land, — a quantity exceeding 

 that of any other New England State ; and that our 

 agricultural products of that year exceeded in quantity 

 those of any of the same States in the articles of live- 

 stock, butter, cheese, wool, wheat, oats, potatoes, hay 

 and a variety of other crops. 



" The value of live-stock, as shown by that census, was 

 $12,643,228, and the aggregate of farm productions for 

 that year shows a valuation, including live-stock, of 

 about $25,000,000, being nearly equal to $80 for each in- 

 dividual of our population. 



" The well-known industry of our citizens engaged in 

 agricultural pursuits and the capabilities of our soil, have 

 been made available for increasing the amount of these 

 products under the stimulus of augmented prices conse- 

 quent upon the opening of railway communication with 

 the markets. It may therefore be assumed that this 

 department of industry has not only maintained its 

 relative importance, but that it has during the intervening 

 years, since the above data, experienced a constant and 

 healthful growth and increase. Still it is conceived 



