ditions. The West has
for seventy-five years pressed hard upon New England farming. But along
with this western competition has come a new opportunity for the eastern
farmer. New England farmers as a whole have not quickly enough responded
to this new opportunity. Many of their troubles may be traced to the
failure to adapt themselves to the new conditions. The men in New
England who have met the new opportunity are succeeding.

What does this adaptation consist in? It means, first, the adaptation of
the New England farmer to his markets. In most parts of the country the
type of farming is perhaps more dependent upon physical conditions of
soil and climate than upon the immediate market. In New England the
reverse is now true, and the type of New England farming must be
adapted, absolutely and completely, to the demands of its market. New
England farmers have the most superb markets in the country. Of the six
million people in New England, approximately 75 per cent. live in the
cities and villages. There are, in New England, thirty cities having a
population of twenty-five thousand or more. The great majority of these
cities are manufacturing cities peopled by the best class of consumers
in the world--the American skilled artisan. They constitute a nearby
market that demands fresh products which cannot be transported across a
continent. New England is also especially favored in its nearness to the
European market. The New England farmer then must adapt his crops, his
methods, and his style of farming to his peculiar market.

In the second place, this adaptation must be one of soil, just as
anywhere else, only the problem here becomes more complicated because of
the varied character of the farming lands. How to make the valleys and
the hills, the rocky ridges and the sand plains of New England yield
their largest possibilities in agriculture is a problem of the greatest
scientific and industrial interest, and it is the problem that New
England agriculture has to face. In this connection comes also the need
of special varieties adapted not only to the market but to the soil and
climate.

This principle of adaptation is the industrial key to future
agricultural development in New England. But to achieve this adaptation,
to make the key work, there is needed the force of social organization.
The farmer must be reached before the farm can be improved. The man who
treads the furrow is a greater factor than nitrogen or potas