10 



cialiou ot" real estate followed, and failiii'e ])eeaiiic general 

 among proprietors. American industry mnst have perished 

 in that struggle if the eml^argo, and afterwards the war of 

 1812, had not come to its relief. In this period, as in that of 

 the war of Independence, the industrial arts received an ex- 

 traordinary impulse. 



Long experience has tanght ns that agriculture could not 

 arrive at a high degree of jirosperity Avithout manufacturing 

 industry. As Jefferson said, "The prosperity of the coun- 

 try can only be fixed upon a solid basis where the manufac- 

 turers are placed side by side with the agriculturists." Allow 

 me to quote from an address given by Hon. Thomas Allen 

 before the Berkshire Agricultural Society last year. He 

 said, "The stimulus given to production by the late civil 

 war, causing high prices, induced such an increase in the 

 manufacture of agricultural machinery and implements as to 

 more than fill the place of the million of men drawn into the 

 ranks of the army; and the consequence was, that this nation 

 exhibited an example, such as has been never seen in all his- 

 tory, of a people supporting a consuming army of a million 

 in the field of war, yet not only filling the gap, but actually 

 so increasing their domestic products as to create a larger 

 surplus for exportation than ever before. As compared with 

 18 GO and the years previous, these exports, except cotton 

 only, were actually doubled during the war; and thus our 

 agriculture not only supplied food for the masses of the peo- 

 ple and for the army and navy, ])ut gold for the public treas- 

 ury. What a proud monument is that to the skill of our 

 mechanics and the enterprise of our farmers ! For who can 

 say that but for this wonderful spirit aroused and developed 

 in agriculture, our soldiers could not have been sustained, 

 and the war might have been a failure ? " 



I think I have shown you that the cultivators of the soil 

 stand pre-eminent among the great industrial classes in our 

 country ; that they feed all other classes and produce all the 

 raw material for the other interests, and constitute the main 



