2 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTUEE. 



them difficult to collect, and due from them equally difficult 

 to pay ; some on the verge of baukruptcy ; many already 

 having, either voUmtarily or involuntarily, taken the fatal 

 plunge ; a multitude anxious day and night, fearing that an 

 honored name and an honored life "svill terminate in this long- 

 dreaded disaster ; and not five in a hundred who are to-day 

 in as good financial condition as they were two years ago. 



This is no overdrawn picture. Repulsive as it may be, 

 unencouraijino- as it is, the facts making this record stand 

 forth so boldly and clearly, that they are easily read of all 

 men. 



While this great tidal wave is still rising and continues to 

 devastate the land, — although you as farmers are not engulfed 

 by it, and perhaps feel it only by the awakening sympathy 

 which distress in others always creates in the human breast, — 

 yet, as citizens of this great and heretofore prosperous 

 country, interested in all its weal and woe, it is your privilege 

 and duty to inquire and know the cause, that a repetition of 

 the disaster may not come from an ignorant repetition of the 

 causes which have created this. 



It is a satisfaction to know that this condition of trade, 

 manufacturing and general business, has been in no degree 

 aided, stimulated or provoked by the legitimate farmers of 

 the country. They have had no share in the causes which 

 have conspired to produce this storm, which commenced with 

 the failure of the great banking-house of Jay Cooke & Co., 

 and has continued to increase and augment in spite of 

 repeated fair-weather predictions, and to-day, so far as 

 human observation can discern, is quite distant from the 

 culminating period of its history. 



In fiict, it is not saying too much when it is claimed 

 that the only impassable wall which this tidal w\ave cannot 

 overleap, is the barrier which the business of legitimate 

 agriculture has erected ; and whatever may be saved to the 

 manufacturer and to the merchant, will be preserved largely 

 by the industry, the skill, the intelligence and the frugality 

 of the men and women who have been devoted to the varied 

 pursuits of agriculture. 



In the early history of the Rebellion, there was great 

 depression in business. Men throughout the country w'ere 



