24 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



DOES FAEMING PAY? 



From an Address before the Hampshire Agricultural Society. 



BY LEVI STOCKBRIDGE. 



Your association was organized and has been supported by 

 public appropriation, by private donations, and much hard 

 labor, for the purpose of stimulatiug, fosternig and improv- 

 ing the aixriculture of this section of the State, to the end that 

 both private and public wealth may be advanced. And it 

 seems to me that any one who has carefully noted the changes 

 that have taken place during the last twenty years in our 

 farms, our farm-houses, barns and their surroundings, in the 

 pecuniary condition of our farmers, in their general intelli- 

 gence, in their knowledge of and success in their business, 

 must be satisfied that in a good degree these results have been 

 attained ; yet the question is being continually asked — "Does 

 farming pay ? " Within the last six months it has been often 

 discussed in agricultural journals, and has been answered in 

 the negative and affirmative in about equal proportions. And 

 the debate is yet going on, as if it were a new question, and 

 the relations of agriculture to private prosperity and national 

 wealth, and the value of labor and its results in this depart- 

 ment, were little understood. Takiuij a broad view of this 

 matter, the decided presumption is that farming pays. The 

 sum of the nation's present wealth and its annual increase is 

 solely the product of its producing industries, — those which 

 create valuable new material, or which put that material into 

 form and place needed to supply human Avant. Simple ex- 

 change, even if dignified by the name of commerce, adds not 

 a farthing to the accumulations of the producers ; and there 

 are many callings, pursuits and professions, acknowledged to 

 be laudable and honorable, which contribute nothing to the 



