26 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



land, — is nevertheless to be reckoned an agent in the compli- 

 cated economy of production, and is therefore in a just and an 

 honorable sense a producer. In name and classification, the 

 agents of production are one thing, and the agents of distribu- 

 tion are another ; but any part and any action that facilitates 

 the progress from production to distribution, invests the actor 

 with a claim to the rewards of labor, and with a title to the 

 name of a laborer in the solemn vineyard of the world. So 

 true is it that in all this diversity of occupation that covers the 

 State, tiiere is unity of design, — harmony of origin, harmony 

 of relationship, and harmony of destiny. This, then, is a lesson 

 of the hour and the place, — the more thorough the classification 

 of labor and the separation of pursuits, the more complete will 

 be that unity and harmony which pervades all the functions of 

 production, exchange, and consumption, and which will bear 

 us onward to the realization of the happiness of social existence. 

 Such, gentlemen, such is labor in Massachusetts. Its 

 achievements are before you. Combining the silent forces of 

 a divine chemistry with the works of man, it has unmasked the 

 surface of the state of rock, and bog, and forest, has reinvigor- 

 ated its reluctant soil, stirred into life all its dormant virtues, 

 and encircled it with the emerald girdle of June and the golden 

 plumage of October. It has summoned into its workshop those 

 benefactors of the generations of mankind, the masters and 

 authors of reformatory art. and invention whose names I have 

 already pronounced, all the procession of their compeers and 

 followers, — has set in motion the enginery of the creative 

 mechanism of eighty years, the most precious years since the 

 birth of our Lord, fiom the leviathan that shakes the earth with 

 its awful vibrations to the delicate pulsations of art that rival 

 the beat of a parlor clock, — and in their magic presence the 

 raw materials of every clime, despised in the ages past but now 

 brought forth to beauty and glory, have departed in. mystery 

 from their natural state and have reappeared in the myriad 

 forms and instrumentalities of a living economy. Next, siipply- 

 inar another class of necessities itself has created, it has made 

 other conquests over the elements and terrors of nature, — and 

 all the metals of the earth, air, water, steam, the lightnings of 

 heaven, have been transformed into the winged agencies of its 

 commerce. Then, having responded to every material want, 



