AGKICULTURAL PKOGKESS. 



DR. FRANKLIN, on seeing a fly escape from a bottle in 

 which for a long period it. had been confined in a torpid 

 state, expressed a wish that he could be corked up in the 

 same manner for a century or more, and then awake, like 

 the fly, to witness the progress that had been made in his 

 beloved country. But when I consider the inevitable 

 tendency of steam-power to concentrate wealth into the 

 hands of capitalists, I feel as if I should be reluctant 

 to wake up some ages hence to view my country when 

 the world is finished. Though steam in its application to 

 travelling and manufactures has conferred great apparent 

 benefits on mankind, we have reason to dread the ulti- 

 mate consequences to small independent farmers of the 

 introduction of steam-power into the operations of agricul- 

 ture. However expedient the system of associated cap- 

 ital may be for the growth of manufactures, it would 

 be destructive to the prosperity of small farming. The 

 corporations, executing all their heavy labor by steam- 

 power and by mammoth implements, would crowd out of 

 the ranks of agriculture all whose farms were of such 

 small extent that steam could not be profitably used by 

 them. In competing with the companies, the small 

 farmer would find himself in the situation of the hand- 

 spinner and the hand-weaver who should undertake to 

 compete with the manufactories of Lowell and Lawrence. 



The system of steam-farming would make it necessary 

 that agriculture should be carried on by large associations 

 of capital and on a magnificent scale of operations. All 



