18 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



tion of the late suppers of overgrown landlords and loomlords, 

 that men bred too fast for the powers of the soil, that men 

 multiplied in a geometrical ratio, whilst corn only in an arith- 

 metical. The theory is that the best land is first taken up. 

 This is not so, as Henry Carey, of Philadelphia, has shown, for 

 the poorest land is the first cultivated, and the last lands are 

 the best lands. It needs science to cultivate the best lands in 

 the best manner. Every day a new plant, a new food is found. 

 Thus political economy is not mean, but liberal, and on the 

 pattern of the sun and sky ; it is coincident with love and hope. 

 It is true that population increases in the ratio of morality, and 

 the crops will increase in a like ratio. 



I congratulate the farmer of Massachusetts on his advantages. 

 I congratulate him that he is set down in a good place, where 

 the soil and climate yield a larger Flora than any other. A 

 greater variety of important plants grow here than in any south- 

 ern or northern latitude. We are on the northern boundary 

 of many tropical trees, and on the southern boundary of the 

 arctic plants. We can raise almost all crops, and if we lack 

 the orange and palm, we have the apple, and peach, and pear. 

 In Illinois, it is often said, although it is more the voice of their 

 scorn than of their piety, that they reckon it a singular leading 

 of Divine Providence that Massachusetts was settled before the 

 prairie was known, else it would never have been settled. But 

 the Massachusetts farmer may console himself that if he has 

 not as rich a soil, he has the advantage of a market at his own 

 door, the manufactory in the same town. I congratulate you, 

 then, on this advantage of your position. Next, I congratulate 

 you on the new territory which you have discovered, and not 

 annexed but sub-nexed to Middlesex and to Massachusetts. I 

 congratulate you at being born at a happy time, when the old 

 slow Avays of culture must go out with the sharp stick and the 

 bow and arrow, when the steam-engine is in full use, and new 

 plants and new culture are daily brought forward. I congrat- 

 ulate you on the fact that the year that has just witnessed the 

 successful employment of new machines, of the mower and 

 reaper, on the plains and prairies, has also witnessed the laying 

 of the Atlantic Cable. The cable is laid, and the courage of 

 man is confirmed. All that used to look like vagary and 

 castle-buildino; is to be solid sense henceforth. Who shall ever 



