94 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



position either of laborers, mechanics, fivctor\' operatives, domes- 

 tic servants, or small farmers who work liarder than their hired 

 men ; or are clerics, salesmen, teachers in the common schools, or 

 engaged in similar occupations, — people whose accumulated 

 wealth consists merely of small savings, and whose daily bread 

 depends substantially upon their dail}" exertion. 



With respect to this ninety- per cent each one, npon the average, 

 must be sheltered, clothed, and fed on what forty cents or less will 

 buy each day, — profits and taxes having been previously' set aside 

 from the aggregate production. Here, in the East, where ma- 

 chinery has been most effectively applied, the average income of 

 each person in those classes may be rather more. In the South 

 and "West, where manual labor is applied in greater measure, it is 

 certainl)' less. 



AVitli respect to this class of persons, one-half the price of life 

 is the price of food. Of each fifty cents which a mechanic in 

 Massachusetts will expend for himself and his family, twenty-five 

 cents on the average will be paid for food, sui^ilying one adult per- 

 son for one day. We may count two children of ten years of age or 

 under as equal to one adult in their consuming power. 



Of this expenditure of twenty-five cents, — if the subsistence 

 of the factory operatives of New England and of the Middle States 

 may be taken as a fair standard of the whole (they being chiefly 

 adult women) — the proportion of each kind of food is substantially 

 as follows : — 



9i cents for meat and fish, — of which about three and a half 



cents is for beef. 

 5 " for milk, butter, and cheese. 



^ " for eggs. 

 2 A " for bread. 

 2 " for vegetables. 



2 " for sugar and syrup. 



1 " for tea and coffee. 



1 " for fruit, salt, spice, pickles, etc. 



23i cents in all ; U cents may be added for sundries, making 25 

 cents per day per adult. 



You will observe that three-fifths of this sum is expended for 

 animal products, — meat, fish, milk, butter, cheese, and eggs ; and 



