860 [Assembly 



pected. Ohio has been embraced in this estimate, as she is one 

 of the states said to be on the decline in soil and products. Mas- 

 sachusetts never was a great state for wheat, from her earliest 

 settlement ; always excellent for corn and grass. When we speak 

 of the nation, or a particular state, we mean the whole of either. 

 In sections of Massachusetts good wheat, no doubt, has always 

 been raised, and may be now with proper tillage ; but these sec- 

 tions are small compared with the whole state, and the soil much 

 better constituted by nature for wheat than the state at large. 

 This happens every where, in most states and nations. Massa- 

 chusetts has run much wpon manufactures, for the last twenty- 

 five or thirty years. She has drawm off' a large proportion of her 

 population into these, as being more profitable and less laborious 

 than agriculture. If such is the fact, and w^e are inclined to be- 

 lieve it is, they will continue to employ their capital and labor 

 in manufacturing establishments, as long as this state of things 

 exists. No matter what may be said or done about the amelio- 

 ration of soils, so as to cause an increased production, capital and 

 labor will run in favor of that branch of industry by which the 

 most money can be made, and in the easiest way. Farmers often 

 change the raising of bread stuffs or particular kinds of it ; some 

 will not raise wheat at all, no matter how well their land will 

 produce it, because it will not pay, or pays poorer than any thing 

 else ; and this is the case now, and has been for several years. 

 Many buy tlieir wheat flour. If they must have it, they say it 

 is cheaper for them to do this, than to raise it to the exclusion of 

 ether things more profitable. Indian corn, oats, fruits, grazing, 

 or the grasses, the dairy, breeding and fattening cattle, &c., these 

 branches suit the soils of the Eastern States best, and they have 

 been run upon much of late in this and other states south and 

 west of us. Massachusetts consumed in 1847, 2,294,000 bushels 

 of wheat more than she produced, corn 840,000 more. It is the 

 interest of Massachusetts to supply this deficiency by buying of 

 such of her sister states as will sell them to her cheapest and best, 

 and pay for them in manufactures or the profits of these. If this 

 were not the case, so large a portion of her population and capi- 

 tal would not be engaged in manufacturing establishments. Her 

 Indian corn is not so largely deficient as her wheat, and by well 



