I have not intended by these observations to combat the assumption that our people too generally prefer other employments to farming. The obstacles to effective modern Agriculture--that is, to agriculture prosecuted by the help of efficient machinery--presented by that incessant alternation of rock and bog, which characterizes New England and some parts of New York, I have already noted; and they interpose a serious, discouraging impediment to agricultural progress. A farm intersected by two or three swamps and brooks, separated by steep, rocky, ridges, and dotted over with pebbly knolls, sometimes giving place to a strip of sterile sand, is far more repulsive to the capable, intelligent farmer of to-day than it was to his grandfather. So far as my observation extends, there are more New England farms on which you cannot, than on which you can, find ten acres in one unbroken area suitable for planting to Corn, or sowing to Winter Grain. Hence, Agriculture in the East will always seem petty and irregular when brought into contrast with the prairie cultivation of the West. Grain can never be grown here so cheaply nor so abundantly as there; while the tendency of our pastures to cover themselves over with moss and worthless shrubs, unless frequently broken up and reseeded, makes even dairying more difficult and costly in New England and along its western border than in almost any other part of our country.
Yet, these discouragements are balanced by compensations. Timber springs luxuriantly and grows rapidly throughout this region; while our harsh, capricious climate gives to our Hickory, White Oak, White Ash, and other varieties, qualities unknown to such grown elsewhere, while prized everywhere. Apples, and most fruits of the Temperate Zone, do well with us; while our cities and manufacturing villages proffer most capacious markets. Potatoes and other edible roots produce liberally, and generally command good prices. Hay sells for $12 to $30 per ton, is easily grown, and is in eager and increasing demand. We ought to produce twice our present crop from the same area, and have need of every pound of it; for neither our cattle nor our sheep are nearly so numerous nor so well fed as they should be. In short, there is money to be made, by those who have means and know how, by buying New England farms, tilling them better, and growing much larger crops than their present occupants have done. There are many who can do better in the West; but the right men can still make money by farming this side of the Susquehanna and the Genesee; and I would gladly incite some thousands more of them to try.