sustains to the other great industrial pursuits of the same com- 

 munity, but to study the character and extent of the productions 

 of the other communities with which there must be competition 

 in the market. 



No industry of the country has been affected to such a re- 

 markable extent by the operations of our system of reciprocity 

 as that of the agriculturists of our own section. Until within 

 the last half century, the people of this section were largely 

 self-supporting. The farmer produced nearly, if not all, the 

 necessaries of life. He raised all the grains from which his 

 bread was made, the potatoes and other vegetables he required, 

 his beef, pork and mutton, and manufactured from the fleeces 

 of his flocks clothing for himself and family. He needed 

 money only for his trifling money taxes and for the purchase of 

 a few necessary articles from abroad. And he was compelled 

 to this mode of living from necessity. He had a scanty home 

 market for any surplus he produced, as the population were 

 principally engaged in agricultural pursuits, and with the great 

 cost of transportation, a poor market abroad. So for many 

 generations the farmer, living substantially on the productions 

 of his acres, to use a common expression, brought the year 

 about, perhaps no poorer, and fortunate if richer, at its end 

 than at its beginning. And so he went on through life, work- 

 ing hard and living upon the immediate products of his labor, 

 and leaving to those who came after him the lands which he 

 had inherited, with but little increase or decrease. 



But within the last half century, the demands of the world 

 for cotton fabrics, and the extensive cultivation of the staple at 

 the South, and the settlement and cultivation of the vast and 

 fertile prairies of the West, have caused a great change in 

 New England farming. 



Within this period, attracted by favorable circumstances and 

 natural adaptations, and stimulated by the artificial aids 

 afforded by protective duties on manufactured goods imported 

 from abroad, the people of New England have turned their 

 attention largely to manufacturing. As a result, large and 

 wealthy towns and cities have grown up, peopled by a non- 



