62 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



measure the steps that others have been making and ascertain 

 our own position. Here we learn by personal communication 

 the experience of others, and impart to them a knowledge of 

 our own success or failure. Apart from scenes like those to-day 

 presented to us we are not able to comprehend, much less to 

 explain, the rapid advances in civilization that have given us a 

 new name and fame abroad. In the isolation of home or in the 

 limited association which village or town life affords, we hear 

 with incredulous ears of reports of new achievements and novel 

 experiments, but here the strength of a multitude, tjje power 

 of association and union in which there is inspiration for all, 

 forces upon us a knowledge both of means and results. Intel- 

 ligent, enterprising and stalwart men, such as we have met on 

 every side, could have accomplished no less. 



The annual product of American industry, in periods of 

 ordinary prosperity, is not less than four thousand million 

 dollars. A thousand millions are paid in wages alone. A sum 

 equal to the aggregate national debt of Great Britain is earned 

 every year by those that constitute the industrial classes in the 

 United States. Such an industrial product, regularly repeated 

 every year, and increasing in the ratio of fifty per centum in 

 every decennial period, is a fact never before recorded in 

 the industrial history of nations. It suggests to us how deep 

 an interest the American people have in the perpetuation of 

 that peace with other nations which they now enjoy. It is a 

 fact that, beyond the theories of mere speculators in political 

 philosophy, stamps our government — self-regulated and cheaply 

 administered, leaving its people with leisure and ability every 

 year with their own heads and hands to create a national pro- 

 duct equal to the accujpaulated debts of expensive governments 

 and protracted wars of a century — as the wisest and happiest 

 yet devised by man. 



Of this industrial product, agriculture contributes by far the 

 largest part. It is susceptible of demonstration that if any 

 material sum be deducted from the gross amount stated as the 

 aggregate industrial product of the American people, upon the 

 ground of exorbitant estimates, it would leave to the agricul- 

 tural interest an incontestible claim to the honor of contributing 

 more than one-half the balance remaining whatever should be 

 the sum. The census returjis of 1850 exhibit a detailed agricul- 



