which it is proper to recognize, legitimate to account for, and may be useful to contemplate, and which there can be no reason to ignore.

If the mere statement of these facts affords them any ground of complacency and self-gratulation, so does it also bring with it momentous responsibilities. To remind them of these is no idle compliment, but may serve a useful purpose. If they have done so much for their country in the past, what may they not do in the future?

The present is an eventful and auspicious epoch in our history, holding out to our people, and especially to our farming population, great and glorious opportunities. We stand between a dreary past and a hopeful future. Having extinguished, with a rapidity and completeness unexampled, the most stupendous rebellion on record; having continued through the whole of that struggle to exhibit and unfold with scarcely any interruption our immense material resources; having made that fiery tribulation the occasion and opportunity for developing an amazing national vitality, a physical energy, a force of character, and a moral power surpassing our own previous conceptions, and scarcely yet credited by the rest of the world; having confirmed and established in the reluctant confidence of foreign nations, the vigor, efficiency, and permanency of our government; having thrown open our vast domain of fertile acres to the people of all climes, thus offering a bid for population beyond the competition of other powers; having invited, facilitated, and secured a steadily increasing tide of immi

gration from abroad, it would certainly appear as if the era upon which we are now entering holds out a prospect beyond any thing hitherto revealed to mankind. We stand on the threshold of a future so full of promise, so radiant with hope, so teeming with possibilities and opportunities, that imagination can scarcely overdraw, nor enthusiasm exaggerate the approaching scenes of prosperity, affluence, and power.

To you, Brother Farmers, such reflections as these cannot be without interest, for with you it mainly rests to realize for your country these well-founded and rational anticipations. You hold the keys that shall unlock the treasures of the earth. In your hands are the magic wands that shall convert prophecy into history, and organize possibilities into accomplished events, transmuting the visions of the future into solid facts, and crystallizing anticipated scenes into living realities.

Το you, then, gentlemen, may the writer be allowed to address a few plain and candid remarks.

If the prosperity of this nation is founded upon the prosperity and success of its farmers, then arises at once the vital question, On what does the success of the farmer depend? The obvious answer is, that it depends mainly upon his getting from his land the largest amount of products, at the lowest rate of expense. To do this requires not only industry but intelligence; not merely the faculty of working, but the faculty of thinking. The man who, by combining thought with action, contrives to get, year after year, five or six bushels more of wheat, and ten or fifteen

more of corn from an acre of ground than his neighbor gets, under like circumstances, will undoubtedly, other things being equal, outstrip his neighbor in the race of prosperity. If this is true in reference to individuals, it is equally so and the effect is far more striking in reference to communities.

Let us take, for example, the corn crop of the United States, and see what the difference would amount to, in the aggregate, if every farmer in the country, at the period of the last census, had raised, with little or no additional expense, five bushels more to the acre. This result was not merely possible, but easy to accomplish, and would have made a net addition of nearly one hundred and thirty million bushels of corn to the product for that year. This being the difference on one crop out of a dozen or more, we may form some idea of the total excess that would result, in a single season, from even a small increase all around in the ratio of production.

Now here, gentlemen, is the point which ought to arrest your attention. The average yield per acre, throughout the country, is entirely below what it should be. The product of Indian corn might just as well be, on a general average, fifty bushels to the acre as thirty or thirty-five; and in putting the amount at fifty bushels, the standard is still too low.

It is easy, however, to perceive, and is well understood, that the rate of yield here complained of is the fault of a part of the agricultural community only, and not of the whole; and it is but just to remark, that low as this average appears, it is nevertheless

above that of former years, and has been slowly, and with some fluctuation, gaining ground for nearly half a century. It must also be admitted, and is entitled to be considered, that notwithstanding this low rate of production, the aggregate amounts of our various crops have risen to proportions truly amazing, and have, as already stated, contributed immensely to the growth and power of the country.

But after all these admissions, though in looking at the grand aggregates, we find them, in comparison with former years, steadily advancing, and though we find the broad result to be national development and prosperity beyond that of any other people, still the inquiry arises, and forces itself upon the mind, What would have been, or rather, what might not have been accomplished, with a larger average yield? What other, and higher, and more incredible results might not have been achieved, had the ratio of production been fifty bushels per acre for corn, with a corresponding increase for all other crops?

Now, to every cultivator of the soil this question of acreable product is one of no little moment; and he has already gone far toward solving it, when he has committed his grain to the ground in the spring. It is indeed a serious question, not only to himself but to the community as well, whether he shall gather twenty bushels from an acre or one hundred and fifty, or what intermediate number he shall reach between these extremes. One thing at least is certain: in the present state of intelligence, with the existing facilities and recently improved methods of culture, no

man of ordinary enterprise will be satisfied with any such quantity as the average yield of the last decade. It cannot be denied that thirty-three bushels per acre is too low an average for the whole country, considering that one hundred bushels are by no means unusual, and that much higher figures have been reached, even all the way up to two hundred bushels.

Whatever has been done in repeated instances, by various parties and under differing circumstances, is surely a reasonable standard for every man to aim at, and one which no true farmer will permit himself to lose sight of. Knowing the limit of possibility, it is only necessary to know further what are the conditions essential to its attainment. Comply with these, and you achieve the result. Let every farmer make up his mind, at planting, how many bushels per acre are fairly within his reach. Let him fix his mark in the spring, with a firm resolve to come up to it. He who determines to achieve whatever has been proved reasonably possible, may safely aim at an elevated mark; and if he conforms to the laws of reason, and nature, and common sense, will hit the centre of his target at every shot.

But there are, gentlemen, two great agencies operating throughout the country, the tendency of which is so favorable and so powerful for good, that I cannot forbear to urge them on your attention. I allude to the influence of farmers' clubs and farming journals. No man engaged in agricultural pursuits can expect to keep up with the spirit of the times, without availing himself of these useful and invaluable means of