1884.] ADDRESS OP WELCOME. 33 



who stands back of all this, and that, with all our prosperity, 

 our capital, and our skill, we should be as nothing whatever, 

 were it not for these men in the fields and in the woods whom 

 you represent to-day. We are dependent in our grandest 

 results upon the work which the men of Ncat England, the 

 men of the Far West, the men of the great wheat-growing 

 region, of the grain-growing region, as well as the men who 

 do a similar work in the fruit orchards and gardens of New 

 England, New York, and New Jersey, are doing ; and it seems 

 to me if we were wise in our little cities, we should open our 

 hearts to the men of agriculture, and should say to them 

 "Godspeed!" when they come among us to discuss these 

 important subjects. 



But there is another phase of it. The Waterbury of to-day 

 is in strange contrast with the Waterbury of the year 1800, 

 and that is true of a great many New England towns. We 

 are now a manufacturing city ; we were then a rural district- 

 Many of the manufacturing cities and villages in the Nauga- 

 tuck Valley and in other valleys of Connecticut were, in the 

 beginning of this century, simply rural districts. I do not 

 know of any more interesting, and I do not know of any 

 more important transformation which has taken place on any 

 piece of territory of the size of Connecticut, than that which 

 has taken place in this State during the present century, — 

 the change from an agricultural to a manufacturing condi- 

 tion. You know on how large a scale that transformation 

 has been going on in Connecticut, in Massachusetts, and, to 

 a certain extent, in other States of New England ; going on, 

 also, in other parts of the world, and here in Connecticut, I 

 suppose, more than in any other part of the world in the 

 same length of time. Well, obviously, it has put the agricul- 

 tural communities of Connecticut at a disadvantage, to a cer- 

 tain extent, just as it has put the religious parishes of 

 Connecticut at a disadvantage. These hillside parishes are 

 not what they were once, in comparison with the city par- 

 ishes, although they may treasure up and hand down to 

 future generations qualities which are worth just as much 



