30 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



our siib'ect, except as clemonstrcati ng the vast superiority of the 

 New England and the seaboard States over the great West 

 in reference to location as to the home markets and the mar- 

 kets of the world. But it would be unworthy the New Eng- 

 land name and character were we to pride ourselves upon our 

 accidental advantages of location, and plead exemption from 

 service and sympathy in this great struggle. Rather it is the 

 cause of labor against monopoly the world over ; of farmers 

 and farmers' productions everywhere against the grasping ex- 

 actions and combinations of railroad rings and scheming stock- 

 jobbers and speculators, a contest in which our instincts and 

 sympathies alike ally us with our brothers of the West. 

 While we insist, with patriotic ardor, that New England 

 must never be left out in the cold politically, we are equally 

 strenuous that the States and Territories of the vast West must 

 not permanently be left out in the cold as to agricultural and 

 commercial interests and advantages. It is a contest from 

 which there can be but one issue, and, unless we greatly mis- 

 judge the signs of the times, the railroad kings, — the Vander- 

 bilts, Drews and Tom Scotts, — may as well learn to meet the 

 people half way in their demands, or they w 11 wake up some 

 fine morning and find themselves Samsons shorn of their 

 locks. Monopolists and stock-gamb'ers, be they demigods 

 in wealth, who feast upon the necessities and Avants of the 

 people, must stand aside, for the farmers of the West, whose 

 name is legion, are literally on their tracks, and they don't 

 propose to burn corn for fuel another year in Missouri or 

 Kansas, because freights are so high they cannot transport 

 it to the seaboard. 



Farmers of Massachusetts ! you have yet to reap and to 

 enjoy your advantages. Do you say your territory is too 

 circumscribed and limited? Look at France for an example. 

 With a territory less than one-sixteenth of that of the Unit- 

 ed States, and but little greater than that of the two States 

 of Massachusetts and California, she raises fifty per cent, 

 more wheat than our whole entire country ; supports a pop- 

 ulation within two millions of our own, and exports more 

 value in butter alone to England than our country does in 

 breadstuffs. Why, her imports and exports are nearly double 

 our own, according to the statistics of our agricultural bureau 



