42 
SOUTHERN CULTIVATOR. 
They do emigrate by thousands, carrying not a little of 
the cream of the soil converted into land-office money with 
them. Good home markets for all the products of agri- 
culture and horticulture, aided by a perfect net-work of 
railroads, do not suffice in Massachusetts either to improve 
the land, or enrich the people who own and cultivate it. 
There is a fundamental error in their system of farm 
economy, and in their universal neglect of agricultural 
education. We entirely agree with Mr. Boutwell when 
■ he says: “ If the depression of which we have spoken is 
■unavoidable and permanent, then this interest is vnihout 
■ hope in New England, and we must await the conclusion 
w a process fraught with ruin, not only to agriculture, but 
to other branches of industry.” 
The ‘‘Wastes of Agriculture” in Massachusetts are not 
unlike those in all t)^ other States; and as they are 
pointed out with equal truthfulness and spirit in the ad- 
dresss before us, we place so much of it on record in these 
pages for future reference as relates to this topic : 
“I. Farmers Cultivate too much Land. This obser- 
vation is old, for it is so true, and its truth is so apparent, 
that it must needs be old. For the reasorUhat the manu- 
facturer economizes his power of water or steam, or the 
trader his capital by diminishing his credits, or the mer- 
chant his voyages by increasing the speed of his vessels, 
the farmer should bmit the amount of land in cultivation 
as far as practicable. It is true to an extent much beyond 
the common opinion, that the cost of a crop per ton or 
per bushel is diminished as the aggregate per acre is in- 
creased. That is to say, a bushel of corn at twenty per 
acre costs more than a bushel at eighty. The same ob- 
servation is true of every product of the land. The agri- 
culture of Massachusetts from 1840 to 1850 was a process 
of deterioration and exhaustion. It was altogether a ret- 
rograde movement, and the lessening crop per acre, year 
by year, was so serious as to threaten the existence of the 
interest. It is to be hoped that the present decennial pe- 
riod will show a better result. In the year 1850, we cul- 
tivated 2,133,436 acres, aud allowing one acre for twenty 
bushels of wheat, for fifteen bushels of rye, for sixty of 
■corn, for forty of oats, for one hundred and fifty of pota- 
toes, for thirty of barley, for one and a half tons of hay, 
for one hundred dollars’ worth of orchard products, for 
two hundred dollars’ worth of garden products, and seven 
acres for the pasturage of every horse, five acres for every 
ox, four for every cow, two acres for each young cattle, 
one acre for each sheep, and allowing liberally for other 
- crops and uses, the product of that year ought to have 
^been obtained from 1,772,581 acres, showing a loss of the 
•use of 360,855 acres, equal to about 17 per cent, of the land 
in cultivation. This loss is obtained upon the aforegoing 
calculation of crops, but as I shall have occesion to say 
hereafter, the loss will appear much greater if compared 
with the returns of 1840, when the actuahesults exceeded 
the estimate I have now made. 
“The first waste to be pointed out is the use of this large 
quantity of land, which, if allowed to run to wood merely, 
would yield an annual average of one cord per acre, or 
360,000 cords per annum. If this wood be estimated at 
one dollar and fifty cents per cord, you have an annual 
loss or waste of $540,000. In the next place, this great 
quantity of land would be much benefitted by allowing it 
to lie idle, for it is a general rule that nature yields a 
growth and improves the land at the same time, while 
what often passes for husbandry leaves the land poorer 
than it finds it. Now, then, let this area of land rest for 
forty years untouched by the hand of man, and it will 
yield an aggregate of twenty millions of dollars, while its 
productive power for the future will be greatly increased. 
“II. As a consequence of this system, the farmers of 
Massachusetts fence, plow, sow and mow six acres, when 
they ought to fence, plow, sow and mow but five j and in 
fine, they extend all their agricultural operations over 17 
per cent, more land than is necessary to the result they 
attain. Here is a manifest loss of labor — a waste where 
there ought to be the strictest economy. It may not be 
easy to estimate this waste accurately, but it is plain that 
it materially diminishes the profits of this branch of in- 
dustry. We have already estimated the entire cost of 
our agricultural labor at sixteen anfti half millions of 
dollars. It is moderate to say that one-eighth of this is 
wasted in the cultivation of 17 per cent, more land than is 
necessary to the crop ; but to avoid any unreasonable cal- 
culations, it may be well to put the loss at one-sixteenth, 
or one million of dollars. Be it remembered that the gross 
proceeds of agriculture do not exceed twenty millions of 
dollars, and of this at least one million is wasted in the 
misapplication of labor. Nor is this all. We shall have 
occasion to say that this misapplication of labor is fol- 
lowed by a more serious loss in the exhaustion of the land. 
But what would be said of a manufacturer who should be 
guilty of wasting one-twentieth of his whole product in 
the application of his labor ? If his labors finally resulted 
in bankruptcy, would he be entitled to public sympathy 1 
Or would judicious men condemn the business because it 
failed in such hands I It is a duty to economize labor. 
Labor is the scarcest and dearest commodity in the mar- 
ket, and so it is likely to continue. 
“III. This waste of labor is followed by a waste of 
land. When we cultivate more land than we ought for 
the crop we get, the process of cultivation is necessarily 
defective and bad, This was the character of our farm- 
ing through the whole of the last decennial period. As 
the land under bad cultivation loses heart and strength, 
more and more is required to meet the demand we make. 
So then, from 1840 to 1850 we not only cultivated more 
land than we ought, but we actually consumed it at the 
rate of many thousand acres a year. The produce of 
1840 was much greater than that of 1850, yet we had 
2,133,436 acres in cultivation at the latter period, and 
only 1,875,211 acres at the former. The product of 1840, 
at the rates before named, would have required 2,317,696 
acres, while they were really produced from 1,875,211 
acres, showing that my estimate of the capacity of our 
soil under ordinary care was too low. If you take the 
excess of the crop of 1840 over that of 1850, and accord- 
ing to the rates before named, find the quantity of land 
necessary to produce that excess, and add that quantity 
to the acres in cultivation in 1850, and you have 2,507,- 
353 acres, or 632,142 acres more than were cultivated in 
1840. These statistics demonstrate two facts — one abso- 
lutely and the other approximately. First, that during 
the last decennial period, our lands continually deprecia- 
ted in productive power ; and secondly, that that depre- 
ciation was equivalent to the annihilation of 63,000 acres 
of land a year, or nearly three per cent, of the value of the 
farms of the State, exclusive of buildings and woodland. 
“In fine, it appears that in 1850 we were cultivating 
632,142 acres more than we should have been, if the pro- 
duction of 1840 had been sustained ; 360,855 acres more 
than would have been necessary at the rates before as- 
sumed ; and also that the impoverishing culture from 
1840 to 1850 was equal to an annual waste of 63,214 
acres, which was apparent in the diminished total pro- 
duct, and in the increased quantity of land in use. This 
waste may be estimated with considerable accuracy. The 
farms of the State were valued at $109,076,377. Two 
and nine-tenths of 1 per cent, the exact proportion which 
the annual waste bore to the quantity in cultivation, is 
$3,163,145. But if you allow that one-half of the total 
value of our farms is in woodland and buildings, the de- 
preciation was $1,581,572 per annum. But whatever 
may have been the exact depreciation, it is plain that our 
culture from 1840 to 1850 was an exhausting one— the 
