No. 4.] OUR AGRICULTURAL ADVANCE. 99 



the production of special crops is becoming more and more 

 localized. This is a practical advantage, in that it utilizes 

 special soils and exposures for the crops best suited to 

 them ; and it is a commercial advantage, in that it helps to 

 consolidate the business of handling, transporting and sell- 

 ing the crop. 



8. Specializaiion and Unequal Development. — It can be 

 shown that our agricultural industries have been greatly 

 specialized during recent years ; and it appears, further- 

 more, that the various specific branches of agriculture have 

 developed with marked inequality, whether we consider the 

 country as a whole, or one State, county or town at a 

 time. The law which seems to govern this inequality of 

 development is this : the rate of development in each branch 

 of agriculture is proportional to the degree of specializa- 

 tion, refinement or intensiveness of the practice involved. 



General Plea. 



In conclusion, I wish to draw a moral and to present a 

 plea. It is evident that our national system of agriculture 

 is moving forward with a certainty and a rapidity that are 

 truly astonishing. In this movement, as in every other 

 beneficent revolution in America, past or present, the Com- 

 monwealth of Massachusetts bears an honorable part. It 

 is plain, further, that our present progress in agriculture is 

 favored hy the same factors which have brought about such 

 wonderful improvements in other industries, viz., by con- 

 centration, intensification of effort, by localization and by 

 specialization. One of the most marked and characteristic 

 phases of this specialization, however, has been the unequal 

 development of different branches of agricultural industry. 

 Those branches which have led are the ones which arc most 

 refined in their methods, — most intensive in their practice. 



The moral is, that, if we seek the advancement of agri- 

 culture, we must encourage the intensive branches. This 

 is particularly applicable to the State of Massachusetts 

 and to other States similarly situated. Though the big 

 undertakings in agriculture — the extensive operations — 

 are always sure to seize upon our attention and to divert 



