AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT. 103 



transportation and shipment of commodities, also, see what 

 vast differences are made by the use of improved appliances. 

 Great staples are now moved directly in immense quantities 

 from inland sources to shipboard, thence bj' steam to foreign 

 markets in such heavy tonnage and with such rapid speed as 

 to reduce essentially the percentage of manual assistance in 

 the business. A foreign statistical writer shows how the 

 Suez canal annihilated the use of 2,000,000 tons of sailing 

 vessels and incurred immense loss in the utter extinction of 

 previously existing appliance of the India trade. Within 

 thirty years the coasting trade of our own State, which then 

 gave employment to a fleet that filled the piers of Boston 

 harbor, has been very largely superseded. Lumber, bricks, 

 hay, coal, iron, grain, cotton, flour — no longer cumber her 

 streets as formerly, but glide around or under them in trains, 

 direct to their destination of consumption or export ; doing 

 away with a small army of sailors, stevedores, truckmen, 

 clerks, porters and helpers. In brief, it may be stated that 

 comparisons between the past and the present in almost any 

 of the branches of business life, thought or activity, will most 

 impressively illustrate the displacement of hand labor by 

 machine appliances — not perhaps in actual numbers, but in 

 proportion to the volume of business performed. There are 

 few, I suspect, who would be willing to go back to the days 

 of hand looms, and jack planes, and tallow candles, preferring 

 the conveniences of modern life with all its handy notions 

 turned out in a lathe and stamped with a patented " trade- 

 mark," nor is there a necessity for it : — but there is a necessity 

 that more return to the life of the farm with all its wholesome 

 and homely occupations and enjoyments, rather than to join 

 the great procession of idlers, bread consumers and grumblers, 

 who march along our streets, loaf at our small stores, and are 

 all the while bewailing the " hard times " which have over- 

 taken them. 



It does not belong to my present purpose to treat of other 

 potent and tangible causes which have been at work to bring 

 about the present stagnation of the business of the country. 



