30 



Well assured am I, that the last track of the moccasin would not liave disajipeared 

 from the ground Avhere we are now standing, surrounded by the emblems and 

 the garniture of civilization. 



Again; canals and railroads, constitute now, a great part of the commercial 

 machinery of modern ci\ilization, transporting a large and annually increasing 

 portion of the travel and the merchandize of the whole country. 



When we contemplate the vast extent of this net-work of internal improve- 

 ment, the stupendous expense of the construction, and the corresponding outlay 

 for the motive power, for the boat and car; and the more especially, when we 

 sum up into one great aggregate, the annual receipts of the system, of which 

 aggregate the Eiie canal alone furnishes a yearly item of more than $3,000,000, 

 well may we wonder at the miracle, that the shoulders of Agriculture and Manu- 

 facture are broad enough to sustain, uncrushed and unbent, the whole burden of 

 the charge. 



And yet they do sustain it. Not a dollar of freight goes into the treasury of 

 these improvements, which is not taken from the produced values of those who 

 are ultimately the mutual parties interested in the exchange, and in the consump- 

 tion of the commodities transported. The gross values of the producer are 

 diminished, aye, tcaed^ if you please, to this amount — and the farmer pa}'s his 

 portion of the tax. But is he oppressed by it ? 



If the farmer of Western New York thinks so, let him by all means eschew 

 the canal and the rail road — ^lie is under no .compulsion to use them — let him 

 call up from an unbroken slumber of a quarter of a century, the teaming gear 

 of his older brother ; let him haul his Agricultural surplus to the good old Albany 

 of his brother's recollection, and his domestic stores back again to his home ; and 

 let him, on the next rainy day, sit down and reckon up his savings. How Avill 

 his tax account stand then ? Why, gentlemen, the penny wisdom and pound folly 

 of such a farmer, would be the scoff and the jeer of his neighborhood. 



And what shall we say of the economy and thrift of a State, which, by 

 constitutional provisions incapacitates itself fromi fostering, encouraging, and 

 aiding works of the most manifest utility, and of the very greatest importance to 

 the prosperity of the farmer — and by its jurisprudence and general course of 

 policy, so relaxes the obligation of contracts, as to render foreign capital too 

 distrustful of individual and company securities, to answer the loud call of the 

 suftering producers, " come over and help us." 



The permanent economical benefit of the canal and the railroad to the farmer, 

 is three fold: — 1. In consequence of the reduction of freight, his produce is 

 worth more on his farm. — 2. The merchandize which he needs costs less at his 

 own door, for the same reason. — And 3. Because the commercial agency thus 

 takes away a smaller portion of his produced values, leaving a larger balance in 



