PROGRESS IN TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. 39 



PROGEESS IIS^ TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. 



From an Address before the Norfolk Agricultural Society. 



BY ROBERT MORRIS COPELAND. 



When we say twenty-five j^ears, it seems but a small time ; 

 but when we say a quarter of a century, it seems a long 

 time ; and it happens to-day that we have reached one of 

 those distinguishing boundaries in our progress, which mark 

 an important step gained, — that we have passed one of the 

 heats in which this society has made good time. It has got 

 now far beyond the hopes of those who founded it. If those 

 gentlemen could have foreseen even but a part of what has 

 been accomplished, they would have been amply satisfied. 

 One looks now at the society and the county with a good deal 

 of honest pride. Look at the county compared with what it 

 was twenty-five years ago. We have, indeed, the same land- 

 scape and the same natural beauties of the earth as before, 

 yet in those days the farms crept up to the very feet of Bos- 

 ton. Where boys who are now men gathered nuts and stole 

 apples, are now to be seen solid streets of stores and manu- 

 factories. You find that in Dedham and Canton and Hyde 

 Park and neighboring towns, the requirements for building 

 arid manufacturing have raised the land in value far beyond 

 its worth for farming purposes. Go back a few miles to the 

 land that was so poor that it was once considered to be worth- 

 less, and there now you will find Hyde Park, which has grown 

 up to be a handsome rural city. We see what has been done 

 during the past twenty-five years ; what will be done during 

 the next twenty-five ? 



We talk of the progress which the world at large has 

 made, and oftentimes overlook what has been going on 



