330 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



" The first of all the taxes to be paid by labor is that of 

 transportation. It takes precedence even of the claims of 

 government, for the man who has labor to sell or exchange must 

 take it to the place at which it can be sold. If the market be 

 so far distant that it will occupy so large a portion of his time 

 in going to and returning from his work, as to leave him insuffi- 

 cient to purchase food enough to preserve life, he will perish of 

 starvation. If it be somewhat less distant, he may obtain a 

 small amount of food. If brought near, he may be well fed. 

 Still nearer, he may be well fed and poorly clothed. Brought 

 to his door, so as to make a market for all his time, he will be 

 well fed, well clothed, well housed, and he will be able to feed, 

 clothe, lodge, and educate his children." 



What is here said of labor applies with equal force to the 

 products of labor ; the nearer the market the more perfect is the 

 power to exchange them and the higher is their price. Trite as 

 is Franklin's proverb, it is not the less true, that " time is 

 money." And yet our New England farmers, trained as they 

 are to habits of thrift and economy in other particulars, and 

 certainly not wanting in any of the essential qualifications for 

 trade, seem, too many of them, in this important matter of 

 marketing their produce, to set scarcely any value at all upon 

 time. But if their time be worth to them any thing at all, if 

 it will yield any return when skilfully employed, it surely 

 ought not to be thus misspent, not to say squandered in a 

 reckless and shameful manner. 



In the second place, market days, by bringing the purchaser 

 to the producer, or rather by creating a half-way place and 

 common ground of meeting for business, instead of the pro- 

 ducer being obliged, as is now most frequently the case, to go 

 to the purchaser with his commodities, would tend to make 

 better prices and quicker and more certain sales of them. As 

 at present managed, the farmer takes or sends to his nearest 

 market town such things as he has to dispose of, and unless he 

 has a regular set of customers, he may be put to much trouble 

 and inconvenience to find a purchaser, and must then often sell 

 to a disadvantage. If, on the other hand, there is collected a 

 large number of buyers at a stated time and place, and there 

 are assembled such products of the farm as all are desirous of 

 purchasing, it is clear that there will be more or less corapeti- 



