AGRICULTURE AT HOME AND AT THE WEST. 27 



surface, his title-deed grants him rentfre?, earth, air and sky, 

 " corporeal and incorporeal hereditaments," from the zenith 

 to the nadir ! Besides it is so i ething to own an Integra part 

 of the State. How well our adopted citizens, the Irish, un- 

 derstand this, when they set us the good example of investing 

 all their spare cash and accumulated earnings in a homestead 

 and a little land, believing that here, as in the old country, 

 to be landless is to be a vagabond, while to be a land-owner 

 is to be a king, or, what is be ter in the eyes of Pat, it 

 makes a politician of him. 



But look a moment at the other side of the question. If 

 the Commonwealth is indebted to agriculture as the pioneer 

 of all its industries, the school of patriotism and defender of 

 home, the State, by the genius of her institutions, by the pres- 

 tige of her glorious banner of liberty and untrammelled 

 thought, has well-nigh ca celled the indebtedness and ren- 

 dered the farming interests, not only of Massachusetts, but 

 of the country and the world, ' er wards and debtors for all 

 time. I refer to the free-land tenure that is conferred by her 

 charter, to the system of small fiirms and independent labor- 

 ers that the Commonwealth has recognized and fostered from 

 its very inception at Plymouth Rock. These conditions are 

 as essential to the growth and development of an agricultural 

 community, as are sunshine and air to the growth of plants. 



I turn now to the question of" profit and loss ; to the eco- 

 nomic aspects of agriculture at home as compared with the 

 West. We have thus far dwelt ma nly on agriculture at home, 

 to its reciprocal relations with the State ; its struggles, draiv- 

 backs and triumphs ; its contributions to patriotism and the 

 State's industries ; to the dignity which the Commonwealth 

 has in turn conferred upon i by investing it with the robes 

 and regalia of liberty. T e next question is, Does farming 

 in Massachusetts j)ay^ Is i as remunerative as at the West? 

 Statistics answer this question better t!:an I can ansAver it. 

 Take, for example, Ohio, Wisco sin and Illinois, — three of 

 the most favored of he Western Sta es in soil, cliipate and 

 population, — and compare their annual productions with 

 those of jNIassachusets. If we take the census re urns of 

 1870 for our guide, we shall find that, excepting the three 

 cereals, corn, wheat and oats, Massachusetts produces more, 



