34 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



In 1838 the annual industrial products of Massachusetts were 

 valued at $86,000,000 ; in 1845, $124,000,000 ; in 1855, |295,- 

 000,000 ; and in 1865 they had swelled to the enormous sum of 

 $517,000,000 ; which give an annual income of over $400 for 

 each individual person in the State. And I find, by comparison 

 of statistics, that the amount per individual of those engaged in 

 agriculture, and those in manufacturing, to be very nearly equal 

 in the aggregate, but may be more evenly divided among the 

 manufacturers than among the farmers. 



As I remarked, the entire industrial products of Massachu- 

 setts in 1838 were valued at $86,000,000. Now our agricul- 

 tural products alone, in 1865, were valued at over $92,000,000, 

 which is $6,000,000 more in value than all the industrial earn- 

 ings of the State were less than thirty years ago. All this rapid 

 increase of material interest is encouraging to the farmer. It 

 adds to the value of everything he produces. His surplus prod- 

 uce finds ready sale at the highest prices and in a home market. 

 In remote markets the manufacturer has greatly the advantage 

 over the farmer. His articles are of more value and less bulk. 

 Take the farmer West, who wishes to purchase a suit of clothes 

 made here. Suppose the suit to cost fifty dollars. The trans- 

 portation from here to Chicago on that suit might be fifty cents, 

 or one one-hundredth part of the first cost, to be paid for in 

 corn, worth one dollar a bushel here, making fifty bushels, 

 which, at the rate of two dollars freight for twenty thousand 

 pounds, would make the transportation twenty-five dollars, or 

 one hundred per cent, upon the value of the corn at Chicago. 

 That is, the cost of moving the suit of clothes is fifty cents, and 

 the cost of moving the corn is twenty-five dollars. 



This shows that it is for the mutual advantage of both parties 

 that producers and consumers should live in close proximity. 

 It would be better for the farmers of Blandford that they should 

 have factories here, whose operatives should consume their sur- 

 plus produce, than that that surplus should find market in 

 Westfield ; better find market in Westfield than Springfield ; 

 better in Springfield than Boston ; better in Boston than in 

 Europe ; and until the West becomes a manufacturing commu- 

 nity, we need not envy them their markets nor wish to exchange 

 our prosperity for theirs ; nor need we envy them their views of 

 political economy, until they see that it is better not only to 



