28 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



by cheap and easy conveyance, the food which we were too busy 

 to gather from our own neglected acres. From the luxuriance 

 of the perennial South, we have drawn that * delicate fibre 

 which lies at the foundation of our massive mills, and has 

 brought into existence our great inland cities, and bound our 

 rapid streams into most useful service for man. Not a coal 

 mine but has lent us its aid. Not a mountain pasture but has 

 fed its flocks for us. Not a vein of ore but has submitted its 

 treasures to the hands of our skilful artisans. Not a forest but 

 has sent its sturdiest and stateliest growth to be moulded into 

 that fleet, which, with unceasing toil, bears the wealth of every 

 clime to our commercial metropolis. Upon every agricultural 

 district of our country we have drawn for our supplies ; and to 

 every agricultural district of our country we have looked for 

 our markets. By our untiring industry and skill we have 

 made markets for the productions of all latitudes ; and by a 

 reciprocal operation, our manufactures have found purchasers 

 everywhere. We have received corn, and wool, and iron, and 

 hides, and cotton ; we have sent forth cloths, and shoes, and 

 implements of husbandry, and almost every machine which the 

 ingenuity of man can devise, or the wants of man require. 

 We have prospered upon the great system of internal free 

 trade, which forms an important part of the splendid civil 

 polity, so full of mutual benefit and mutual obligation. 



I need not remind you what Masachusetts has become under 

 the influence of this policy. What a school system has she 

 organized and endowed through the liberality and wisdom of 

 her legislature ! What colleges has she built, through the 

 munificence of her wealthy capitalists ! What cities has she 

 erected, through her untiring and varied industry ! — Boston, 

 and its rich and beautiful suburbs ; Worcester, Springfield, 

 Lowell, Lawrence, Salem — and towns innumerable, increasing 

 in wealth and intelligence, and all the arts of civilized life, and 

 presenting an accumulation of active business, and of education 

 and refinement, unc(|ualled by any like portion of territory in 

 America — perhaps not in the Old World, llow large, then, 

 should be lier patriotism — how broad her charity — how compre- 

 hensive her statesmanship — how wide-spread her influence for 

 all that may give power to the American name. If there is a 

 State which should be true to the doctrine of self-government, 



