22 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



much has been done under the forms of law to injure and de- 

 press agricultural pursuits. 



Starting with the thesis — as we must do — that all the actual 

 means of subsistence to man must come out of the earth at first, 

 and that all the other pursuits are only to add to his comforts 

 and luxury, or to obtain to the individual more than an equal 

 share of such comforts and luxuries, and then comparing the 

 legal and mechanical machinery which has been devised to assist 

 those other pursuits, it will be seen at once why agricultural 

 production has not been in greater degree increased, and is with 

 us among the least remunerative of employments. 



Nothing more forcibly illustrates this than a glance at the 

 aids which other occupations receive from legislative action. 



In no spirit of criticism — certainly none of detraction — but 

 by a simple grouping of facts, by way of illustration, let us com- 

 pare the aids given by legislation to agriculture with those afford- 

 ed to other pursuits. And that we may bring it to the test of 

 our recent memories, perhaps it may be as well to take the leg- 

 islation of our own State and in the present year, as any other ; 

 for we in Massachusetts hold, with reasonable pride, that our 

 law.s are models, and that our legislatures are imcorrupt and 

 incorruptible. 



At the time I was considering the topics of my address, there 

 was put into my hands a book of over five hundred octavo 

 printed pages, containing the laws passed by the legislature of 

 the Commonwealth in 1869. " Five hundred octavo pages of 

 law," said I, " in a single year. Five thousand in ten years, and 

 ten thousand in twenty years, for a single State." The world 

 itself will not contain the laws that shall pass in a few genera- 

 tions ! In a note at the end we are told that the " General 

 Court of 1869 " assembled on Wednesday, the 6th day of Janu- 

 ary, and was prorogued on Thursday, the 24th day of June, the 

 session having occupied one hundred and seventy days ; that they 

 passed 466 Acts and 103 Resolves, all of which had received the 

 approval of the governor ; and then, not without a touch of 

 grave humor, we are informed that the Acts may be classified as 

 follows : — General statutes, or acts of a public character, 293 ; 

 special Acts, relating to individuals and corporations, 173. The 

 Resolves do not seem to have been classified at all, although they 

 were, with perhaps two exceptions, in favor of individuals, and 



