388 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



rewarded in Vermont than in Ohio ; there is no probability tliat 

 such is the fact, and these apparently strange results mubt be 

 explained in some other way. 



The theory which I presented in the first part of this address, 

 that large plains, unless subject to strong external influences, 

 are not favorable to an active, vigorous, progressive civilization, 

 is not a theory of my own, nor by any means a new theory ; 

 but the statistical illustration which I have laid before you 

 was suggested by a remark of a stranger, whom I met in a 

 railway car, that the inhabitants of Caledonia county, Vermont, 

 produced more than any other equal population on the globe. 

 This seems to be an exaggerated statement, and I feel bound, 

 in justice to my unknown collocutor, to give you the result of 

 an analysis of the industrial power of tliat county, upon the 

 plan heretofore pursued. 



It had, in 1850, a population of 23,595. Adopting the prices 

 before named for Vermont, and charging interest upon the 

 capital employed, its net product would be seventy-three dollars 

 for each person ; and omitting interest, it would be eighty-six 

 dollars ; thus placing the county somewhat above the average 

 of the State. For the purpose of comparison, I will give you 

 the result of a similar analysis of the county of Worcester, 

 Massachusetts. 



By the census of 1850, Worcester had 130,152 inhabitants. 

 Its agricultural and manufacturing products, allowing hiterest 

 on the capital invested, and excluding raw materials, amount 

 to $9, 925,445, or seventy-six dollars for each person, against 

 seventy-three dollars in the county of Caledonia ; and omitting 

 the item of interest, we have eighty-six in Caledonia, against 

 ninety-one in Worcester. 



Now these facts, so favorable to New England, do not by any 

 means lead to the conclusion that labor is better rewarded here 

 than in the West, but that we are, as a people, more indus- 

 trious. Industry with us is a matter of necessity ; with them 

 it is a matter of convenience, or even of pleasure. It is not 

 likely that they have a greater proportion of idlers, but that 

 the mass are not so diligent as are the same classes with us. 

 Men may indeed doubt whether this necessity for labor is a 

 blessing or a curse ; most of us would make the question a per- 



