APPENDIX. xxi 



cows in the county has diminished, the growth of market-garden 

 crops lias largely increased. The value of the market-gardening 

 in 18G0, was $175,000; in 1870. it was nearly $400,000. Now, 

 what does all this prove? Not that agriculture is declining, 

 but that an acre of onions or cabbages is worth more than an acre 

 of corn or grass ; that it is more profitable to supply the market 

 with milk than with butter and cheese. To specific crops, then, has 

 the count}' turned its attention ; and never in its history has the soil 

 of the county been a source of more profit to the owner than it is 

 to-da}'. All around the great centres of trade and in<lustry, — Law- 

 rence, Haverhill, Salem, Lynn, Nevvburyport, and Gloucester, — the 

 farmers are prosperous, and everywhere the farm-houses pre-ent an 

 air of neatness and comfort, and the fields indicate a prosperous 

 application of agricultural skill. 



In no occupation, moreover, is labor more amply rewarded. 

 Whether engaged in cultivating his own acres, or in toiling on the 

 acres of his employer, the laborer is as amply compensated here 

 by agriculture, as b^^ any other service in which he employs the 

 strength of his arms and the skill of his fingers. Of this capacity 

 of the soil to remunerate those who devote their energies to it, I 

 have at least one admirable illustration. I am officially connected 

 with the Plumer Farm School in Salem. We have there thirty bo3's, 

 committed for various offences, and whose labor is applied, a few 

 hours every da}-, to furnish the inslitution a portion of its support. 

 These bo3's are employed on the land, in pro;lucing market-garden 

 crops and small fruits ; and in the shop in manufacturing the seats 

 of chairs — what is called " bottoming chairs." An accurate account 

 is kept of the amount they earn per da}- in each of these occupa- 

 tions ; and it is found that while in the shop the\- earn but twenty 

 cents, on the land they earn fifty cents for the hours in which they 

 labor. This is no theory, but a fact established after the fruits of 

 their labor have been placed upon the market, and the proceeds in 

 monc}^ have been received. The land always rewards liberally 

 those who judiciously devote their energies to it ; and the capitalists 

 of the West are the great grain and beef growers of that region, and 

 among the prosperous men of the East, are those who juiliciously 

 and skilfuU}- and economically devote their farms to special crops 

 properly cultivated. 



But we are constantly told that the farming towns of Massachu- 

 setts are declining, and must ultimate!}' die out ; and this is so zeal- 

 ously repeated that it almost seems as if the position was assumed 

 and defended to gratify a desire, rather than to state a fact or to 

 sustain a theor}'. A slight reduction in the population of some of 

 them, during a decade of war and manufactures, is adduced as proof 



