18 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



AGRICULTURE, AS A NATIONAL INDUSTRY : 



THE RELATIONS WHICH IT ESTABLISHES BETWEEN NATIONS, BE- 

 TWEEN STATES, BETWEEN VARIOUS PEOPLES. 



From an Address before the Middlesex Agricultural Society. 



BY GEORGE B. LORING. 



I deal with a material question. I know no other at this 

 time. I do not believe that a free and enlightened people can 

 be debauched by excessive wealth into heartlessness, or insensi- 

 bility, or dishonor. But I do believe that upon the prosperity 

 of a community depends the tone of its morals ; and 1 know 

 that upon successful industry our institutions of learning and 

 religion depend for their most valuable support. I have great 

 faith in a thriving people ; I have none in a bankrupt, unfortu- 

 nate and poverty-stricken people. I speak of universal pros- 

 perity — a diffused wealth — where every man has an interest 

 and an opportunity. For, upon this foundation alone, can a 

 free people, clothed with all the responsibilities which belong 

 to self-government, and divided into towns and counties and 

 states, build a sound and substantial political fabric, and arrive 

 at true wcaltii and power. Individuals in a state may be rich 

 and yet the state itself may be poor — poor in finance, poor in 

 industry, poor in cultivation, abjectly poor in every clement of 

 social and civil elevation. True, the class of monopolists may 

 be so great and powerful, and their business be so extensive, 

 that every subordinate order of society is kept in constant, pro- 

 fitable activity. But a people thus orgiuiized cannot be free. 

 They may control the commerce of the world ; they may manu- 

 facture for all mankind ; they may establish the rates of ex- 

 change throughout every market ; but one-half of such a people 

 must be " hewers of wood and drawers of water " for the other. 

 The political economy, then, which belongs especially to Massa- 



