352 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



a sufficient answer to those who say that our soil is sterile, our 

 climate inhospitable and our agriculture in the decline. If this 

 were true, our farming population furnishes a very striking anom- 

 aly, for statistics show that, with reference to most of the staple 

 products of this country, the yield of an average acre in Massa- 

 chusetts is- greater than that of any other State, and that the 

 money value of the product of an average acre is greater ; while 

 any impartial traveller with an extensive observation both 

 throughout the United States and the best farming districts of 

 Europe, would admit that there is no farming community in 

 the world presenting, as a whole, and with fewer exceptions, 

 greater evidences of thrift, prosperity, enterprise and comfort, 

 than our own. There may be, and there doubtless are, wealthier 

 communities, countries where the landed property is concentra- 

 ted and held in fewer hands, but for a free people,* working their 

 own farms, and dependent upon their own honest labor alone, 

 it seems to me our country towns present the practical proofs of 

 a remarkable material prosperity, which is at once the result 

 and the criterion of success. 



CHARLES L. FLINT, 



Secretary State Board of Agriculture. 

 Boston, January 24, 1872. 



