236 [Assembly 



less than the increase of our swine, and our railroads, I think, 

 less than our farm fences. Neither is it our commercial relation 

 with other countries, for (Chinese as the mode of reasoning may 

 be) could the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans never again be 

 crossed, except for the transportation of mails and passengers, ten 

 years experience would show us the advantages of such isolation. 

 But, sir, it is not to the importance of immediately increasing the 

 productions of our soil that I wish particularly to call the atten- 

 tion of the club. This is so evident, from actual fig-ures, that 

 there will be no difficulty in comprehending it. 



There is another fact which requires consideration and action— 

 a fact on which must depend our ultimate prosperity as a nation. 

 I allude to the fact that the more we increase our crops, under 

 our present system of management, the more we reduce the actual 

 wealth of our country. Our efforts towards advancement have 

 been short-sighted ; we have looked to present ability to spend 

 more than to future ability to produce. The man who lives on a 

 bank deposit of $10,000, and each year draws out $1,000, will, at 

 the end of ten years, find himself deprived of his resources. The 

 farmer who possesses in his soil the inorganic elements of 10,000 

 bushels of grain, and yearly removes the elements of 1,000, with- 

 out making proper return, will, at the expiration of ten years, 

 find his soil denuded of its capital stock of nutriment The nation 

 w^hich is possessed of a limited amount of fertilizing matter (and 

 all matter is limited), and which pursues such a course of culti- 

 vation as tends to take more from the soil in the shape of crop 

 than is returned to it in the form of manure, must, sooner or 

 later, find itself bankrupt in those properties without which no 

 nation can exist. This, sir, is not mere theory; it is painful 

 truth, now being hastened to a practical development by the labor 

 of nine- tenths of our self-styled practical farmers. Our tendency 

 is toward destruction. The sweat of the nation's brow falls in 

 the furrows of America like the tears of a child mourning for its 

 mother's increasing debility. But, sir, what are the facts 1 Look 

 at New England — once so fertile ; her avenues are covered with 

 emigrants moving westward, seeking for their labor that remune- 

 ration which their native States have ceased to afford. Look at 



