186 TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 



Club, I wish to bring to their notice a subject of vast importance to New 

 England and Northern States. I consider the grass crop in that portion 

 far exceeds in importance all other crops. 



" It is a fact that, in the last half century, our pastures have deteriorated 

 to an alarming extent. For instance, through all the States of New Hamp- 

 shire and Vermont, or the old parts, one acre in 1800 would keep as much 

 as five or six in 1860. The question I wish to have considered is: How is 

 this exhaustion to be arrested, and the original fertility restored ? for if it 

 go on, we shall be obliged to pack up our traps and find pasturage elsewhere. 

 It will be said, and with some truth, that our hills were exhausted by rais- 

 ing rye for distillation. It is also true that there is but a trifling difference 

 between those lands and those which have never felt the plow; both, where 

 sixty years ago were covei'ed with red and white clover and herds grass, 

 are now grown to white grass, sweet fern and daisies on the high lands, 

 and on the low lands, brakes, polypod, mouse ear, and a thousand and one 

 other weeds without any name. 



" Perhaps it will be said the low lands should be underdrained, but that 

 is by far too expensive for pasture land, and the hillsides must be plowed 

 and manured, but we can obtain manure from all sources in quantities only 

 for hay and plow fields. Besides, a large share of New England pastures 

 are not suitable for cultivation, on account of steepness and being rocky. 

 The idea has all along obtained that pastures would not deteriorate, but a 

 moment's thought, aside from experience, would show the fallacy of that 

 theory. When we consider how much of bone, meat, tallow, horns and 

 hide, added to milk, butter, cheese, &c., is taken off, and how little is re- 

 turned, and that little exposed to atmospheric influences and the washing 

 off of the finest portion by violent showers into the plains below, we cease 

 to wonder at the exhausting process. And where is this mighty consump- 

 tion going on ? In the cities and large towns mainly, where little or 

 nothing is ever returned. For instance, the city of New York consumes 

 nearly three times as much as the State of Vermont, and nothing is returned 

 to the pastures whence it is taken. I have read in the Massachusetts 

 papers that the quality in the soil which made the bone were being ex- 

 tracted, so that many of their cattle were destitute of good and healthy 

 bone; but I do not exactly take stock in that theory, as the results would 

 be too fearful to contemplate, for, if that be true, then why might not the 

 property which constitutes the hair, skin, muscle, wool, &c., be lost, and 

 finally affect the human system ? But as such results have not been expe- 

 rienced in old countries during thousands of years, I know not why we 

 should look for them here. It may be interesting, in order to give an idea 

 of the inevitable power of exhaustion, to contemplate what becomes of the 

 products of the soil, and certain it is that they nearly all finally enter the 

 stomach of man. 



" Of the grass, hay, grain, vegetables, animals (except horses, and a few 

 which die of disease), millions of insects devoured by poultry and game, 

 together with what is drawn from the ocean and its tributaries, all contri- 

 bute to the sustenance of man. And where is this mighty army of con- 

 sumers ? They are encamped in great cities all along the borders of lakes 



