AGRICULTURE OF MASSACHUSETTS. 



AGRICULTURE AND THE INDUSTRIAL ARTS. 



From an Address before the Essex Agricultural Society. 



BY DARWIN E. WARE. 



We have assembled to celebrate in the county of Essex the 

 annual fair and festival of its farmers. The season is felicitous. 

 The delightful coolness of the morning and evening hours ; the 

 genial, warm-hearted noons ; the clear and crystalline air, in 

 which the heavens seem higher, the pure sky bluer, the fleecy 

 clouds whiter and the radiance of the night more silvery than 

 their wont, are grateful and exhilarating after the sultry heats 

 of summer. The wistful, anxious days are ended. The perils 

 of the germinating seed and the tender plant are over. The 

 crop has passed beyond the power of the worm, the insect and 

 the drought, and now lies safely mellowing for the harvest. 

 Upon the foliage of the forests glow here and there the streaks 

 of many-colored light, that soon will blaze with golden and 

 crimson splendors in the sunset of the declining year. They 

 herald the approaching hour of thanksgiving, when the farmer 

 rests from his labors. 



The occasion is one of universal interest. When the farmers 

 rejoice, let all men make holiday. The least thoughtful per- 

 ceives that all alike are indebted to him who grows the crop for 

 the sustenance of their daily lives. The more reflecting, to 



whom the present brings up the past from which it came, as the 

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