20 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



everywhere well known by reimtation, — Abbott Lawrence. 

 He died in 1854, I think. He Avas accounted in Boston, in 

 NcAV England and in the country as a rich man. T think he 

 was worth |1, 750, 000. Tn comparison with the enormous 

 fortunes of the present day, that was not much. I don't 

 know what is to be in the future. I am not going to 

 prophesy about these great accunmlations of wealth. I sup- 

 pose that they will disappear gradually if we can keej) them 

 within the system of the laws of family distribution of pi-op- 

 erty . That is a matter that may very well be considered, ^- 

 whether people shall be permitted to transfer i)roperty in 

 vast sums outside of the persons that they have to provide 

 for, by the laws of descent and distribution. 



About everybody has advanced in Avealth and comfoit. 

 If you go into a railroad station and a car passes you, going 

 in the same direction that you are going, at a more rapid 

 rate, your sensations give you the idea that you are retro- 

 grading or going back ; while, as a matter of fact, you are 

 going forward, but at a different rate of speed. That is 

 the fact in our life to-day. Mechanics and laborers are all 

 better off than they w^ere fifty years ago. They are much 

 better off than we mio^ht imagine if we did not consider what 

 was their condition many years ago. Then $8 or $10 a 

 month was paid to a form laborer in the summer. One 

 dollar a day was paid for a man for mowing, if he was a 

 good mower. Girls in families got $1 a week and their 

 board. Everybody has gained. 



It is SO" with the farmers. There is a vicAv of agriculture 

 that occurs to me in view of these chan^'es. In ISIassachu- 

 setts, certainl}^ and in New England I have no doubt the 

 same facts prevail, though it may not be so in parts of the 

 west, — but here it is practically impossible for a man of 

 wealth to buy a large tract of land and farm it by hiring 

 men, and get more than one per cent on his investment. 

 Many things combine to make it so. That condition acts as 

 a breakwater, always standing up against a polic}- whereby 

 rich men might buy land and farm it. Unless the owner is 

 a worker upon the land, to make it productive and to econ- 

 omize, the farm cannot be managed profitably. The farmers 



