86 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



price of the cotton has indeed declined, we will say from twenty 

 cents to fifteen ; so that while in seventy years the agricultural 

 product has only lost one-fourth of its value as estimated in 

 money, the manufactured product has lost three-fourths of its 

 value as estimated in money, while as estimated in each other 

 the cotton is three times as valuable now as it was then. This 

 simple example, which is a perfectly fair one for our purpose, 

 throws the principle we are unfolding into a strong light. 



But take another instance. Old uncle Eli Porter of Williams- 

 town used to make brass clocks, which were sold for about 870 

 apiece. Seventeen years ago I bought of George B. Perry a brass 

 clock for $7, which keeps as good time, and for aught I know 

 will last as long, as uncle Eli's. If corn was worth a dollar a 

 bushel when the Porter clocks were sold, it would take seventy 

 bushels of corn to pay for a clock. Corn is worth about a dol- 

 lar a bushel now, but seven bushels of it will buy a clock prob- 

 ably as good as those clocks were, so that the power of a bushel 

 of corn to command a good clock is ten times as potent now as 

 it was fifty years ago. Thus we have another illustration that 

 what the farmer has to sell tends to buy more and more of what 

 he has to buy. On the whole, the price of corn has kept pretty 

 steady thoughout this century thus far, but the power of a 

 bushel to buy most other things has kept steadily increasing 

 throughout this country thus far. If we had at the present 

 time in this country a sound currency, and a free system of ex- 

 change with our neighbors of other nations, both the general 

 principle of which we are speaking, and this particular illustra- 

 tion of the corn, would appear in a more striking light than 

 they now do. But notwithstanding the badness of our currency 

 and the restrictions on our trade, the truth still maintains and 

 illustrates itself on every hand that the products of the farm 

 are constantly becoming more valuable relatively to the products 

 of the factory. 



I shall now give three reasons why this is so. Of these the 

 first is, that madiinery can be applied more completehj in manu- 

 factures than in agricultvre. The effect of the use of machinery 

 is always ultimately to cheapen the article produced by its help ; 

 since machinery itself is nothing but an expedient to take off 

 lal)or from human muscles and throw it on the ever-willing 

 slioulders of Nature. To replace an expensive agent, namely, 



