88 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



" I ploughs, I sows, 



I digs, I hoes, 

 I gets up wood for winter ; 



I reaps, I mows, 



I 'taters grows. 



And yet for all I knows 

 I'm 'debted to the printer. 



I do suppose 



All larniu' flows 

 Right from the printing press ; 



So off I goes. 



In these 'ere clothes, 

 And settles up, I guess." 



This variety of avocations, though favorable in some other 

 respects, is not favorable to cheapness of production. There is 

 involved in it a loss of dexterity, of time, of tools, of inventive 

 skill, and of an economical distribution of labor. Therefore 

 farm products created under this disadvantage have an advan- 

 tage in point of value over products to whose fabrication divi- 

 sion of labor contributes more. 



The third reason is, that nothing- can materially shorten the 

 time during ivhich farm products matvre. Not so the processes 

 of manufacture. They can be hurried up. The wool that is 

 on the sheep's back to-day may be scoured to-morrow, dyed the 

 third day, spun the fourth, woven the next, finished the next, 

 the tailor's shears may be in it as soon as Sunday is over, and a 

 man may walk in pride in what ten days before clothed the 

 humble sheep. So of most other processes of manufacture ; 

 they can be put rapidly through ; and the manufacturer may 

 speedily realize on his completed product. But the farmer 

 must watch and wait. No diligence of his can ripen his grain 

 one moment before the time. He must have the former and 

 tlie latter rain. He must wait on the seasons. He can rarely 

 realize on his efforts in less than a year's time. But when in 

 God's time, and by God's blessing, his corn is ripe and ready for 

 market, his fruits are gathered, and all his products offered for 

 sale, he finds year by year, if he is a careful man, that his corn 

 will buy rather more cloth, his butter rather more buttons, his 

 hay rather more harness, his cheese, roots, beef and wool rather 

 more of all those manufactured articles which he has occasion 

 to procure. He may not know the reasons of this, but I have 

 now given him the reasons ; the fact may be disguised from his 



