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MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



diffused that no section or county of the State can claim peculiar 

 honor in this respect. But I will venture to call your attention 

 to the remarkable increase of population and wealth in certain 

 cities and towns in the Commonwealth, which indicates not 

 only the extent of our prosperity, but also in certain instances, 

 the power of an industrious laboring people to rise to individ- 

 ual wealth as well as to generally diffused competency. I refer 

 especially to such places as Lynn, and Worcester, and Spring- 

 field, and Fitchburg, whose prosperous citizens laid the founda- 

 tion of their wealth with their own hands, and set an example 

 which every honest, and industrious, and prudent man can fol- 

 low with success. 



Increase of Population and Wealth in certain Cities and Towns. 



Attending this growth in wealth and population there is an 

 ardent desire to cultivate the popular mind, to establish the 

 best systems of charity and criminal reformation, to inquire 

 into and fix if possible the laws of health, to investigate all 

 social and civil problems, to ascertain the best organization for 

 travel and transportation, to suppress crime and to encourage 

 virtue, to develop agriculture, and to preserve for every emer- 

 gency the martial spirit of our people. And so her prisons and 

 charitable institutions, her schools and colleges, her agriculture 

 and military, are all fed by her bounteous hand. To the work 

 of education she is especially devoted. In peace and in war she 

 has never faltered in this great enterprise of popular education. 

 During the heavy drafts on her treasury at the time of the rebel- 

 lion, her expenditures for education steadily increased. And 

 when peace came, with its accumulated indebtedness, the schools 

 received, if possible, still more earnest care. Last year the 



