62 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



to secure abundance. This grand law of animal and plant 

 variation, which some have fancied to be no law, but a sort of 

 indefinite unfolding of one specific form into another, is here 

 seen to have special relation to the progress of the human race, 

 a relation so specific that if we recognize a creative intelligence 

 anywhere, we must recognize it in the production of varieties, 

 not only as fitting animals and plants to the varied physical 

 conditions of the earth, but as perfecting their relations to man 

 as a progressive being. We may now have the best kinds 

 known : but five years from now we may have better peaches, 

 grapes and strawberries, better grains may wave in our fields, 

 better flocks and herds cover our hills. Man, capable of unlim- 

 ited improvement, and with the desire for such improvement, 

 finds nature perfectly adapted to his constitution. 



The cultivator of the soil, though among the most independ- 

 ent, like all civilized men has need of the labors of others. 

 He does his part to support manufactures and commerce. 

 They must give him fabrics in exchange for raw materials and 

 such products as his own soil and climate cannot supply. But 

 utilization of labor demands that every product shall be con- 

 sumed as near the place of production as possible. The finest 

 wheat may grow so far from market as not to be worth the cost 

 of transportation, and the golden corn may become fuel instead 

 of coal. Every mill, every artisan's shop adds value to the 

 farmer's land in its neighborhood. Every product consumed 

 there is saved the cost of transportation. If we must send our 

 wheat to Manchester and Sheffield and bring our wares from 

 them in turn, there is plainly a vast loss in transportation. 

 Every mile a bushel of wheat is carried adds to its cost, but 

 adds nothing to its power to support human life. A bushel of 

 wheat will bring more money in Liverpool than in Illinois 

 where it grows, but it will not feed the laborer one moment 

 longer in one place than in the other. The amount of trans- 

 portation and the cost of transportation should be reduced to 

 their minimum. And it is time that we should stop reckoning 

 the profits of transportation as additions to the wealth of the 

 country, when they are simply tolls levied upon the consumer. 

 The less of them the better. 



When agriculture and manufactures of every kind go hand 

 in hand, the labors of both classes will be most perfectly utilized. 



