UNITY OF INTERESTS. 43 



UOTTY OF OTTEKESTS. 



From an Addi-ess before the Berkshire Agi-icultural Society. 



BY ELIPHALET STONE. 



Apiculture and civilization have walked the world tofjether 

 since the pastoral age ; and although agriculture lies at the 

 foundation of all our interests, still it never could reach its 

 highest usefulness without the stimulus of other industries. 

 A community of farmers, isolated from other influences, will 

 naturally fall into a state of careless indolence and will cher- 

 ish no desire beyond their most common necessities. You 

 propose to them to introduce other interests and they will 

 look upon it as an invasion of their rights. But this spell of 

 apathy being once broken by the introduction of manufactur- 

 ing pursuits, and the agriculturist will awake from his sloth- 

 ful dreams and cooperate with the general progress of things 

 and wonder that the world moves no faster. 



With industry comes economy, and when idleness steps out, 

 energy and manhood step in. 



With manufacturing industry come all the improvements of 

 the age, better common roads, railroads and canals. Waters 

 that have flowed for centuries untamed to the ocean, now turn 

 the wheels of industry and furnish a highway for the better 

 transportation of the products of the farmer and the manufac- 

 turer, creating a home-market and cheap carriage for their 

 surplus productions. 



It is then and not till then that the farmer awakes to his 

 own interest. It is then the firmer becomes anxious to probe 

 Nature and wrest from her her richest treasures. His calling 

 assumes a new dignity and importance. It ceases to be a 

 mere means of livelihood, and becomes one of the chiefest in- 

 strumentalities of wealth, influence and honor. His land rises 



