ELEMENTS OF SUCCESS. 33 



ELEMENTS OF SUCCESS. 



From an Address before the Union Agricultural Society. 



BY C. O. PERKINS. 



Massachusetts is a manufacturing State. Tliere are only one- 

 fourth as many persons engaged in agriculture as in manufac- 

 turing. With a population of 1,267,000, not less than 217,500 

 are engaged in manufacturing, and only 68,600 engaged in 

 agriculture. Consequently, manufacturing is the leading, and 

 farming the secondary, occupation of the people of Massachu- 

 setts ; and we see more of the manufacturing element in our 

 communities than of the farming, and we are dazzled by tho 

 display of the few manufacturers who are making large income 

 returns, dress expensively, and drive fast horses. But, farmers, 

 think for a moment of the hard toil of hundreds whose real 

 wants are inadeqviately supplied, whose toiling hands add to the 

 luxury of those few. We see the display of the few but not the 

 wants of the many. Does the fact that we are in a manufac- 

 turing State need to make us dissatisfied with our lot ? There 

 is no State, no country, no nation on earth, where labor receives 

 so great a reward as in our own State. There may be more 

 uniformity in the West, where farming is the leading occupa- 

 tion ; there may be more equality there ; but labor does not net 

 as good nor as sure returns. With them increase of population 

 does not increase prices of ppduce, but rather the reverse, 

 because it increases producers. But the increase of population 

 in a manufacturing community increases prices of produce. 

 Every new factory lays additional claims upon the farmer for 

 produce, and while we cannot get the same number of bushels 

 for the same labor that they get at the West, our access to 

 market enables us to get the full price without sacrificing the 

 profits to the carrying trade. 



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