ADDRESS OF PROF. STOCKBRIDGE. 117 



then? The truth of the remark of the lecturer that there 

 has been a great change in the agricultural community within 

 the last twenty or twenty-five years in this immediate section 

 is shown by the audience that has been drawn here to-night, 

 as well as in a great many other directions. You will find 

 it, as has already been said, in the implements on the farm, 

 the style of farming, the crops we grow, the general manage- 

 ment of land and the whole round of agricultural industry. 

 We find that there has been a great change, and a change, 

 in my judgment, for the better. We do not grow the same 

 crops and our mode of farming is not the same ; there has 

 been almost an entire change in these respects. While on 

 this point a statement comes to my mind that I saw in a book 

 to-day, accidentally, that away back in 1662, when the whole 

 Connecticut Valley consisted of the towns of Springfield, 

 Northampton and Hadley, the Great and General Court of 

 Massachusetts passed a law that the people of Springfield, 

 Northampton and Hadley might pay all their county rates 

 in fat cattle and other cattle fit for market, and in corn. 

 They did not have any money. In 1 662 fat cattle and other 

 cattle fit for market, and corn, were the great market crops 

 of this valley, and they remained so down until within about 

 twenty-five years, did they not? You remember that the 

 "river gods" were fattening cattle here for two hundred 

 years for the markets in the eastern part of the State. What 

 are they doing to-day ? The ' ' river gods " are not making 

 cattle nor fat cattle — what are they making ? 



A Voice. Tobacco. 



Prof. Stockbridge. Oh, no, that has gone up. The 

 filling up of this valley and of the whole of New England 

 with a difi'erent class of population, engaged in a difierent 

 business from that which was followed by our fathers, has 

 created a demand in Massachusetts and all over New Eno;- 

 land for a difierent class of crops. Cattle cannot be grown 

 profitably here in competition with the West ; we cannot 

 aficnxl to grow them ; but we make milk, we make butter, 

 we make cheese, we make poultry, we make vegetables, and 

 we shall continue to make men and women as of old, and we 

 shall find in this New England an open market for all the 

 crops of this kind that we can make. [Applause.] 



