32 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



sions of the laws which aggregate it, conceals itself in a thou- 

 sand forms so as to be wholly beyond the reach of taxation. 



This state of things has not yet gone past remedy. Let us 

 take timely warning. Let us examine carefully into the evils 

 of this system of legislation. Let us reform them altogether. 

 One means of preventing too much legislation would be meet- 

 ings of the legislature once in two or four years only. We have 

 a system of general laws, come down from our fathers, with all 

 their wisdom perfected now through more than eighty years of 

 careful revision, ample for all the general wants of the people ; 

 ample to punish crime, to determine rights, to protect person 

 and preserve property ; ample for all purposes for which laws 

 are good. Why is it, then, that we should spend so much time 

 in making others, or rather in doing those legislative Acts which 

 are only the means of private advancement ? Many years ago, 

 the excuse for Acts of incorporation was that there was not suf- 

 ficient capital in the hands of individuals to enable the under- 

 taking of large industrial enterprises, and therefore it was ne- 

 cessary to associate the means of many for such purposes. Now, 

 as we have seen, there are accumulations of individual wealth 

 sufficient for all purposes — many and many individuals carry- 

 ing on larger industrial enterprises than any corporation ; so 

 that that reason failing, what can be said why the making of 

 corporations should not stop ? Are they now anything more 

 than means by which people can associate together to commence 

 enterprises of which, if successful, they reap the benefit, and if 

 lost or unproductive, by getting rid of individual responsibility, 

 throw the burden of the failure upon innocent persons, and gen- 

 erally upon the industrial classes ? 



While true it is that agriculture has all its discouragements 

 and all its difficulties, and that it never can be the most lucra- 

 tive employment of men, yet the tillage of the land will ever be the 

 favorite one. Nearly all men in professional or mercantile or 

 manufacturing life look forward, as the end and object and finish 

 of their exertions, to a time when they may leave the turmoil of 

 business and find the tranquil delights of old age in the culture of 

 the land. To become farmers, in fact, is the end of all their aspi- 

 rations, of all their endeavors, of all their enterprises. The ship- 

 master who ploughs every ocean, visits every country, observes the 

 fertility of every soil, tastes of the fruits of the tropical clime. 



