42 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



Had the passengers of the Mayflower landed a few degrees to 

 the north or south of Cape Cod, notwithstanding their many 

 virtues, they could not have created a Massachusetts. It is 

 this climate, in its direct and indirect influence on our mental 

 and physical constitutions, which has made it what it is, — the 

 grandest Commonwealth of the nations ; — and though but a 

 speck on the earth's surface, has given it an influence as wide 

 as civilization has extended. He who ignores it, and emigrates, 

 except on the same line of temperature, relinquishes for him- 

 self or his posterity all its legitimate results, and sacrifices the 

 grandest conquests and enjoyments of humanity to his desire 

 for ease and inactivity. 



The next great requisite for successful agriculture is a good 

 market. Markets for the farmer are made by a large consum- 

 ing population, whose labor is not directed to the making of 

 food products; but that the market may be the best possible, 

 certain things are necessary : First, that the consuming popula- 

 tion shall be in close proximity to the lands which create their 

 supply ; second, that its occupations shall be stable and reliable, 

 and give the pecuniary means of supplying all its wants ; third, 

 that it shall be intelligent and cultivated and have all the varied 

 wants to be supplied, of communities in an advanced state of 

 civilization. Such a market is the best, because no community 

 or nation of farmers can be permanently prosperous which is 

 compelled to transport its products long distances, or export 

 them beyond its territory to find consumers, as it must pay the 

 cost of that transportation, and the fertilizing elements of the 

 crops are forever lost to the fields that produced them. They 

 are the best, because the necessary agricultural investments to 

 supply a given demand are of a permanent nature, require time 

 for their development, cannot be easily changed, and must 

 have a corresponding market and sure return. Best, because 

 that the higher are your customers in the scale of improvement, 

 the more numerous will be their desires to be gratified, and the 

 greater the profit on the articles of their consumption. Now, 

 have the farmers of our State the advantage of such a market ? 

 Are they not reaping all its benefits ? 



Our population is one of the most dense on a given territory 

 of any State on the western continent, and much the largest 

 proportion of it is occupied in pursuits which make no food. 



