OUR SOIL, OUR CLIMATE, OUR CROPS. 41 



ive cultivation from which it has suffered, it yet possesses the 

 power to reward the labors of the husbandman abundantly. 

 But, says the objector, I admit your crops are good enough, 

 but it is by the hardest of work you can get them ; and then 

 your climate is cold and inhospitable ; your long winters con- 

 sume all your summer's products, and when the year comes 

 round there is nothing left. Now a genial climate is the 

 second great requisite for successful agriculture, and has as 

 important an influence in determining the character and quan- 

 tity of the products of a given area of land as the soil itself. 

 It is the climate which in the vegetable world of the tropics 

 produces the palm, the sugar-cane, the banana, and all its 

 magnificent flora ; on the great plains of the West, naught but 

 the miserable sage ; in the polar regions, lichens and mosses ; 

 and in the temperate zone, the cereals and nutritious forage 

 plants. In the animal world, it is the climate which produces 

 the elephant, the lion, the anaconda, and myriads of gigan- 

 tic, poisonous, tormenting insects of the tropics ; the white 

 bear, the walrus and the seal of frigid regions ; and the horse, 

 the ox, and the sheep of temperate latitudes. As of other 

 animals, so of man, it is climate as a prime cause which has 

 made different races, with their peculiarities and characteristics. 

 The climate of Africa made the Negro race ; of Greenland, 

 the Esquimaux ; of Southern Asia, the Mongolian ; and of the 

 temperate belt, the Caucasian, with its minor families, Teutonic 

 and Celtic, with their special traits. 



Now for what and to whom is the climate of Massachusetts 

 really uncongenial and inhospitable ? It is uncongenial to the 

 palm of the South ; to the worthless sage and lichen of the 

 North ; to the lion, tiger and tormenting insect world of the 

 tropics ; and to the white bear and seal of the Arctic circle. 

 But for everything which is really the most valuable and useful, 

 both in the animal and vegetable world — for every product 

 whose influence, in its production or its use, tends to promote 

 the welfare and happiness of the individual, and the prosperity 

 of a State — the climate of Massachusetts is genial. Removed 

 from the enervating and debilitating influence of the South and 

 the North, the climate has just enough of vigor to give strength, 

 vitality and exhilaration to all organisms, vegetable and animal, 

 which it produces. 

 6* 



