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860, making of aggregated capital $127,989,524, which leaves only $175,813,158 in the hands of individuals. By referring to table of the general appendix it will be seen that this can only represent a small portion of the personal property of the people.

The report of the Superintendent of the Insurance Department shows that the whole amount of fire risks taken by foreign and domestic insurance companies in this State for the year 1862, was $1,729,988,571.

That the amount of fire risks on the first of December, 1862, having less than a year to run was $1,280,239,044. Estimating by the amount of risks that have a year or more to run, we can safely calculate that $200,000,000 will cover all the fire risks upon fixtures which properly belong to the realty, leaving, therefore, the sum of over $1,500,000,000, as representing the personal property covered by insurance. But as all the personal property is not covered by insurance, and as only about two-thirds of the value of that insured is covered by the policy, it follows that the aggregate value of the personal property in this State must equal the value of the real

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The data are thus given whereby this aggregate has been attained. Others can judge of their accuracy. One thing in regard thereto is certain, viz: that the value of personal property in this State fully equals that of the real estate.

Much valuable information on this subject might be gathered through the insurance department if all companies were compelled to so classify their returns as to show how much was insured on buildings, boats or vessels, on cargo, on merchandise in building, on grain, or generally on vegetable and animal products. Then again to classify the buildings so as to show for what purpose they were occupied.

With comparatively small labor a vast amount of statistical detail could be gathered of great use in regard to personal property.

The facility wherewith this species of property may be concealed from the assessor, requires the detail of all kinds of business to be more minute than in regard to real estate, to avoid undue inquisition into the private financial condition of the tax-payer on the one hand, or an undue leniency on the other.

By means of a proper system of detail in making the assessment, personal property can be reached and made to bear its share of the burdens of taxation.

It is important to call the attention of the Legislature to the serious results which are likely to follow from allowing the stocks and other evidences of debt against the United States, to escape taxation for the support of the State government, and of the locality where held.

Of the taxable property of the State, not one-fifth of the personal property is now reached; while the real estate is assessed upon eleven-twenfieths of its value, personal is on less than four-twentieths.

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But if the claim now set forth by the holders of the securities for money loaned the general government be allowed, then nearly or quite all the personal property in this State will escape taxation, and real estate be made to bear the additional burthen.

Whilst it is conceded that the State cannot tax the property of the United States within its territory; yet it is difficult to understand upon what principle the securities for money loaned to the government should escape taxation on that account.

If the evidences of a debtor's liability, after being negotiated, be yet his property, it overturns the notions and practice of centuries, and confounds all previous ideas upon the subject of ownership.

But if the stocks or bonds of the general government be the property of the holder and in the same category as the obligations of individuals or corporations in the owner's hands, then it is manifestly unjust to allow them to escape taxation.

One-half of all the taxes collected in this State, are for the purpose of protecting personal property, and the mean and sordid spirit that seeks to compel others to pay the taxes for its benefit, is guilty of a theft, the more unpardonable because it can only be accomplished by perjury or false representations, that in other cases would consign the perpetrator to the penitentiary.

A case occurred during the past year, in one of our inland cities, which illustrates the absence of morality, so prevalent on this subject, and the facilities furnished for evading taxation of personal property, in a peculiarly forcible manner.

A merchant who openly boasts that he made, during the year, in clear profits from his business, $30,000, has only paid to the State of New York, for all the protection which has been furnished both by city and State, the sum of fifty cents, and not even that upon his large stock of merchandise, but upon a little poodle dog, which happened to be reached by the dog law. And this is only one of the thousands of equally glaring cases, though they may not have been reached even by the dog law.

AGRICULTURE.

In the description of the different groups, the peculiarities of the prevail. ing agriculture are pointed out in each. An inspection of the tables in the appendix to each group, will show the system which has been adopted, and to what extent it is followed.

It will be seen that in most cases the farmers have adopted the system best for their locality.

The surface where winter grain can be grown profitably is much smaller than has been generally supposed. The sixth group is a wheat growing region. The tiers of counties bounding it on the south have more or less land upon their northern margin which will produce winter wheat. But beyond this famed region there is no other section where winter wheat can be grown with certainty or profit. Yet the soil in the second group is a natural wheat soil. Portions also of the third and fourth groups have soil that might bear this cereal; and in the first group it is grown profitably in

many localities, because the straw is more valuable for market than the grain produced.

Still, in all these localities where the cultivation is attempted, other crops would generally pay better for present and certainly for future gain.

Since the census was taken, farming in this state has made a wide stride in the way of an intelligent and profitable system. The last State census was taken after one of the most disastrous years (1844) ever known to the farming interest.

The midge and blight had destroyed the wheat, especially winter wheat, to such an extent that in many localities which had exported large surplus annually, the farmers were compelled to find their bread in the wheat brought from beyond the State. The continued ravages of the midge forced the adoption of a more judicious system of farming in the wheat group. Less wheat was sown, more animals were kept, and the beneficial results of the change began to be manifest five years ago, and have continually augmented.

In a tour of the State, made in the year 1859, more manure was seen carted upon the land in this region than had ever been seen before, and an annual inspection has shown each year an increase of the manure applied, until it is a safe estimate that five times as much manure is now applied to the land as there was in 1855, and that the amount is annually increasing.

The result is manifested in the increased production not only of wheat, but of all other vegetable products of the farm as well as a very large increase of the animal products, amounting in the aggregate to more than tribble the product before the advent of the midge. The average of nearly or all farm products, in a favorable season, would show a gain of fully fifty per cent. over that of 1854.

Outside of the 1st, 2d and 6th groups the general tendency of agriculture is in the direction of animal produce over vegetable, and as a result the agriculture of those districts is becoming annually richer, by so much as the farmers conserve their manurial resources. The permanent productive power of the land is to be estimated by the magnitude of the manure crops annually made and applied. In the dairy districts of the 3d, 4th and 5th groups the farmers are beginning to realize this fact. Though they progress slowly as yet in the knowledge of the best modes of application, they are very much in advance of the farmers of the grain districts in husbanding their manure. They are also beginning to learn the important fact for them that the less land plowed the better. That the plow should only be resorted to for the purpose of increasing their grass crops. They are begin. ning steadily to comprehend that great axiom in agriculture-the more grass the more cattle-the more cattle the more grass.

It has been shown how ample are the markets and the facilities for reaching them. It only remains for the farmer to study the wants of those markets, and to adapt their surplus to meet those demands. It should be his study to ascertain: 1. What produce brings the highest price relatively to its cost of production. 2. By what means the cost of production to be reduced in order to increase the net profit? The result of his investigations on the first subject will be the abandonment of those crops and that system

which, in a given situation, are not profitable, and bestowing his attention upon those only which pay the best. The second will lead him to the discovery and adoption of methods for economizing labor, thereby rendering it more productive.

Our farmers should remember that there is only one law which admits of no exceptions, and which everywhere produces the same results, that is the law of markets. Upon the due comprehension of this fact will depend their prosperity, the value of their land, and the accumulation of their personal property.

It should be remembered, however, that there is a keen competition with the farmers of other States for the supplying of many of these markets, and that our farmers should study to supply only those articles wherein there can be the least competition. The largest competition comes from the vegetable rather than animal products, as may be inferred from the fact that while all kinds of vegetable products have risen but little in value during the last twenty years, animal products have doubled, and in many instances quadrupled in that time, and are still increasing in ratio as popu lation increases. In the three great products of the dairy, milk, butter and cheese, competition with the farmers of other States has had no visible effect upon prices, nor is there any prospect, for all time to come, that these articles will not command remunerating prices, whatever may be the quantity produced by people of other States.

Sheep and wool form also a profitable branch of farming in the grain growing regions of the State, and the numbers kept to the acre in the 6th group, shows that sheep and wool are among the staple products of the farm in the grain growing region.

But the time has come when the farmers of this State, in nearly every section, must resort to the improvement of their farms by under-draining, by a careful system of manuring, and by a greater attention to the production of fodder crops, and the careful feeding of their animals, if they wish to set at defiance the prodigal farming upon the virgin soils of the west. They must avail themselves of all the advantages of their position, and properly use a soil which, as a general rule, is able to repay with abundant profit all the care which an intelligent system of farming can bestow upon it.

A Spartan youth complained to his mother that his sword was too short. "Add a step to it, my son," said the matron. Probably if she lived now the same spirit would not advise him to sell out and go west, or abandon his badly tilled lands for the village or city, to avoid the effects of a keen competition for the great markets that are almost at his door.

She would bid her son to overcome competition by a more skillful use of the means which he possessed, and seek to make two blades of grass grow where only one grew before; a feat which is being accomplished in many localities of the State with great profit to successful cultivators. What man has done man may do. There is plenty of good farms in this State that only lack the intelligent cultivation of the owners to become more valuable than the gold mine of far off regions. The fault is not so much in the soil as in the owner.

The cultivation of a greater range of crops is advised in all localities. In the dairy region, flax can be made a very profitable crop, especially if the seed be consumed upon the farm by the stock, and the manure thereby vastly improved in its value. Roots, especially the sugar beet, could also be much more cultivated than at present with manifest profit to the dairyman as well as to the grain grower.

There is nearly or quite 100,000 acres of land in the State adapted to the successful cultivation of the grape. In the sixth group, around all the inland lakes, and along the borders of Lake Erie and Lake Ontario, there can be a succession of vineyards. In the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd groups, there are many places where the grape can also be profitably grown. And at no distant day it will be in the power of the farmers to add to their aggregate vegetable products a sum equal to that of all their wheat crop from the vineyard alone.

The money which the Legislature annually appropriate to agriculture has been the means of increasing the property of this State by hundreds. ofmillions of dollars, and a moderate increase of those annual appropriations will still largely increase those values.

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