OUR SOIL, OUR CLIMATE, OUR CROPS. 43 



Our manufacturing industry in every branch of its productions 

 is immense, and it has gathered here artisans and laborers in 

 corresponding numbers. Unlike England and other European 

 countries, this population is not mainly collected at a few- 

 points, forming great cities with their attendant evils, but it is 

 located in villages and communities all over our area ; alike on 

 the hills and mountains of Berkshire, Franklin and Worcester, 

 and the gentle slopes and lowlands of Plymouth and Bristol. 

 Wherever water can be found in sufficient volume to turn a 

 wheel, or fuel to give action to an engine, there a manufactur- 

 ing population is congregated adjoining the farm lands which 

 ought to supply them with sustenance. And we have not only 

 a large manufacturing, but a large commercial population. 

 Massachusetts has become an exchanging and distributing point 

 for a great extent of country, both at home and abroad. This 

 industry is destined to increase until it will be immense, and 

 give employment to multitudes whose food must be the product 

 of farm labor. 



From any other standpoint than that of the farmer, I should 

 say that the relation between our food- consuming and food-pro- 

 ducing classes was considerably out of proportion, and we 

 should find it so if we were deprived of our communication 

 with the other States. In fact, if the people of Massachusetts 

 were today shut up and confined to their own area, with all 

 the stores they have on hand, and all the bountiful harvests of 

 the year safely garnered, we should not have food enough in 

 reserve to keep them from starvation until the next harvest. 

 And for years the present farming population could not supply 

 the necessary amount, even if they ceased the production of all 

 comparatively worthless plants, and devoted all their present 

 arable soil to making food products. Our markets, then, are 

 all right so far as the extent of the demand and nearness are 

 concerned ; they are all right, also, in the endless variety of 

 wants and the ability of the consumers to pay for their gratifi- 

 cation. There is not on the face of the globe a population of 

 equal numbers, occupying a contiguous territory, who in intel- 

 ligence, education and refinement, and in all the necessities 

 which refinement and education create, are superior to ours. 

 And notwithstanding all the hue and cry and " clap-trap " of 

 demagogues and agitators concerning the contest between labor 



