ARTICLE IV.-IS IT TRUE THAT FARMING IS "DECLINING" IN NEW ENGLAND?

"THE decline of farming in New England" has of late been the subject of much newspaper discussion. It has been held up to view in various lights and used to point the moral of a number of social, religious, economical, and political theories.

In most of the discussions the subject has been treated as if it was a local phenomenon, and therefore produced, directly or indirectly, by local causes or conditions. Judging from these discussions, there appears to be a widespread and remarkable misapprehension of the real facts of the case, and as a result we have an abundance of curious reasoning from those who have pet theories to maintain and who have an easy and sure cure for the evil. These partisans have confounded several things which are essentially distinct. The decline in rural population as compared with that of cities has been treated as if it consisted especially in the flight of farmers from New England farms, and the changes in New England agriculture as if it was a local decline in production rather than a part of that great change which is going on in agriculture in all countries where railroads have penetrated. It has been discussed as if the condition of agriculture in New England was an exceptional phenomenon and not a part of that agricultural depression which is now disturbing every country of Christendom.

These several topics have been worked up by those who contribute to our newspapers, until many persons have come to believe that there is an actual and positive decline in the agricultural productions of New England, and that her farmers are experiencing exceptional suffering. Both of these assumptions I believe to be essentially untrue.

That there is serious agricultural depression in New England is certain; but, in this, New England only shares the experience of other localities. There is not an actual decline in the total agricultural productions of this region, nor in the total area of cultivated land other than that to be accounted for by the absorption of land in towns and cities; nor is there, I believe, so great a decline in the total value of cultivated land as is occurring in other parts of the country, nor of the number of persons employed in agriculture. On the other hand, all the actual statistics, in our possession, point to the opposite, that there is a positive increase in the total agricultural production, in the area of farms, and in the number of persons employed. There is a gradual change in the character of the products and in the relative values of the different farms; many are decreasing in value, and others are increasing; but these changes are the same in kind and perhaps even less in degree than in most other countries.

For a better understanding of the changes that are going on, it is necessary to briefly notice some of the elementary principles which govern production in agriculture, and the conditions under which the farmer's vocation goes on. I have discussed this matter more at length in other places (more especially in the Rep. Com. State Board of Agr., 1881; Cereal Production in the U. S. Rep., 10th Census; Rep. Mass., Board of Agr., 1889, etc.).

Agriculture differs from the other classes of productive industries, in the essential conditions which underlie production. It is readily seen that these conditions are very unlike the conditions governing production in mining and in fisheries. It is more often compared with manufactures, but it contrasts with manufactures in every particular. Inasmuch as the food of civilization is and must be produced by agriculture (including stock growing) it must go on in some shape, or all civilization ceases. Therefore it cannot be killed by any conditions, political or economical, however unfavorable they may be. Manufactures may be greatly promoted or entirely suppressed in any country by legislation. Not so with agriculture. It will go on, in some way, under any and every form of government, good or bad. It is so plastic in its nature that it will conform to any

imposed conditions, no matter how hard. For example, consider the condition of Egypt, the granary of the world three thousand years ago, and between that date and this subjected to nearly every form of political disturbance, misrule, oppression, and mismanagement that can be conceived of, and yet agriculture goes on, not only sufficiently to supply the people with bread, but to furnish various agricultural articles of export. Or still better, perhaps, consider the case of Ireland. When hostile armies from without invaded the island and domestic wars within desolated its fields, the people did not entirely starve. We are told that the invading armies were sometimes supplied with scythes to cut down the standing grain, cavalry were turned into the growing crops to trample them down, the contents of granaries were thrown in the mud or carried off, stacks burned, cattle killed, etc. The manufacturing industries were destroyed; but the agriculture adapted itself even to such hard conditions. A new kind of plant, left in Ireland by Raleigh in 1610, was taken up, and potatoes became the chief crop and indeed the national food for one hundred and fifty years before they were extensively adopted by the common people of other civilized countries and probably saved the Irish from extinction as a race. The new crop was well suited to the climate and soil; it yielded abundantly; the labor of one man would feed thirty or forty; it was easily cultivated; it was alike adapted to the garden and field, and was especially adapted to hand cultivation. If the plough was broken or the team killed, only the spade was needed to prepare the soil and plant the crop. But the special character which adapted it to the uses of the Irish was that it could not be destroyed by the foe. No stacks to be burnt; cavalry might be turned into the potato patch but did not harm it; neither the enemy's horses nor the neighbors' cows would eat the green tops; if mowed off with the scythe they grew up again and no especial harm was done. Only by digging the crop up, hill by hill, could its growth be stopped, and even then the tubers could not be readily destroyed or even materially injured. They would not burn; if thrown upon the ground they were not spoiled; they were too heavy and bulky to be carried away, and even if dumped into the neighboring

bog, as they were more than once, they remained sound to be fished out again as good as ever by the miserable inhabitants. Moreover, it was a crop that could be used while green and growing as well as when ripe. So soon as the young tubers were large enough they could be eaten, and on the other hand, they were not injured if they remained in the ground after ripening, and the harvest might be put off for a more convenient season. Simple as was their cultivation, their preparation for the table was even more simple. They required neither sickle, nor scythe, nor reaper, nor thresher, nor mill, not even an oven; just as dug from the soil they could be roasted in the ashes and eaten with salt.

Irish agriculture was not killed even by such hard conditions. It kept alive after a fashion, and remains to-day one of the liveliest questions in British politics.

I have cited this example of the adaptation of local agriculture to unfriendly conditions because it is a striking one and a very simple one, but it is no more remarkable than is continually going on nearly everywhere. It differs only in degree from what is the experience of nearly every old region.

Agriculture is so plastic that it yields and adapts itself to every surrounding pressure, but it yields slowly. From the character of the vocation and the nature of the product, changes can only go on slowly. The change from tilled land to pasture land must come about gradually. The adaptation of animals to the especial local requirements is a slow process. Agriculture is in fact one continuous experiment. No crop is alike successful every year, and each region produces some crops better than others. So the vocation is everywhere continually and incessantly changing. New predatory insects, changes in markets, in transportation,-in fact each and every thing which influences the amount of the product, the quality of the product, or the price for which it sells, is continually producing changes in the agricultural practice of any locality or region.

In manufactures the product is more largely under the control of the manufacturer, or where not under control the results can be predicted. How much work a man can do, the relations of the product to the labor employed and to the capital

employed, can be closely calculated beforehand; moreover, the most of it is quickly performed. Not so in farming. Its capital has to be more fixed in quantity, as represented by the farm itself, its machinery, and live stock. With most of the processes there is uncertainty and variability of cost, and of all of the products there is great uncertainty as to the quantity which will be produced. The quality is also uncertain. No such uncertainty exists in manufacturing operations. Moreover, it takes much longer time to get the farm product, and during the whole process there are uncertainties which do not exist in manufactures. The cost of production cannot be calculated, nor the amount or the quality predicted. Even in so simple a process as that of plowing, the cost varies greatly at different times. A rain coming at an opportune time may greatly cheapen the process and lesson the wear and tear of implements, or an unusual drouth may make the plowing slower, the cost of feeding the teams greater, and the wear of the implements more severe. Time may be lost through bad weather and the same cause may prevent the crop from being planted at the time most favorable for the best yield, or injure the growing crop, or interfere with its harvest. Drouths may

pinch it, rains may damage it, and so on through the whole period of growth and preparation, these are factors beyond human control.

As matters have been under previous conditions of transportation, when every region had to grow most of the food it consumed, a short crop in any region meant a better local price for the product, and thus the misfortunes which were incidental to bad years were in a measure mitigated.

What appears to be a most anomalous fact is, that while civilization is advancing and the population of Christendom is increasing, while there are more mouths to be fed and wider markets as a whole, yet this industry which supplies the food for the increasing population and developing civilization of the world finds itself everywhere now in distress. Agricultural depression is a familiar term everywhere. Agricultural capital is relatively declining, and the farmer has for the past few years been doing business on a falling market, while in most other kinds of business there has been unusual activity. The causes