146 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



sary for daily food, but also all kinds of light implements of 

 domestic manufacture, and some of the cheaper articles of 

 domestic use, such as crockery, cheap hardware, baskets, wood- 

 en-ware, cheap calicoes, woollens, domestic hosiery, and so ou. 

 In addition to that, in almost every village or city you find, upon 

 those occasions, a large display of flowers, in pots and bouquets, 

 the market for which is resorted to by all the inhabitants. 



Now, gentlemen, what is there in the nature and habits of 

 our peojile, now thickly settled, and engaged in trade and 

 manufactures, that should prevent such a system as that grow- 

 ing up among us ? I cannot see anything. This system is the 

 result of the experience of older and populous countries. 

 Prima facie, it is better that the producer should meet the 

 consumer face to face. Let me illustrate by mentioning one 

 fact. I spent two months in Geneva, in Switzerland, last sea- 

 son, and boarded with an old lady of seventy years. Two 

 mornings in the week she hired a carriage — not at four or five 

 o'clock in the morning, or sometime before daylight — but at 

 seven or eight o'clock in the morning, went to the market and 

 purchased in the street of the various market men and women 

 all the provisions for her family until the next market day, and 

 brought them home in the carriage. The market women assem- 

 ble there, not necessarily at three or four o'clock in the morn- 

 hig, except that the earliest comers get the best positions, and 

 they are not driven away, as they are in Market Street, Boston, 

 at nine or ten o'clock, but remain until two to four o'clock in 

 the afternoon. The producer and not the buyer fixes the price, 

 but at whatever price the producer can furnish the article, at 

 that price it goes into the mouth of the consumer. 



Now, I lay down the proposition, that if we are independent 

 people, if we are sensible people, if we have that common 

 sense which we are so fond and justly fond of attributing to 

 the universal Yankee nation, we, who are engaged in farm- 

 ing, or identified with the farming interest, should not permit 

 the exactions, the extortions and the robberies to which we are 

 subjected, day after day, and hour after hour, by the middle- 

 men of Massachusetts and New England. (Applause.) I say 

 to you, Mr. President, that if you will require by law — a law 

 which the cities and towns cannot resist — that every town of 

 four, five or six thousand inhabitants and upwards shall furnish 



