22 



they are but the inductions of reason, from the accumulated facts 

 of ages. 



The agricultural resources of Massachusetts are not inferior 



O 



to those of Great Britain. The soil is naturally as fertile and 

 capable of being rendered as productive. All the cereal grains, 

 vegetables and fruits there raised can be here cultivated, and 



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the latter more perfectly. We have in addition maize, one of 

 the most important, if not the greatest staple of New England, 

 and silk is being successfully introduced, a product, which is 

 destined to be of as much consequence to the proprietors of 

 land, as that of their flocks, and may rival the vast cotton crop 

 of the south in value. Our domestic animals if not now gen- 

 erally equal, are rapidly becoming so. The facilities of inter- 

 communication, by good roads, canals and rail-ways are increas- 

 ing in a manner, which promise especial benefit to the farmers 

 of the interior. Their industry will be encouraged, their pros- 

 perity advanced, and a more cheering aspect be given to large 

 portions of territory, which have been unable to compete with 

 more favored" localities, from the distance of a market and the 

 enormous expense of transportation. But those terestrial 

 comets, which are traversing every star in our political system, 

 and attract the gaze of the astonished world, as much as that, 

 which now blazes in the heavens, will have an influence on 

 national prosperity more beneficial, than that of the other, was 

 ever deemed baneful. By their potent agency distance has be- 

 come a mere technical term of geographical illustration, and 

 time has been substituted as the only true measure of the space, 

 by which places are separated, as well as that which divides 

 events. It is of no moment what are the ranges of mountains, 

 extensive plains, vast rivers and capacious lakes, whiph lie be- 

 tween the emporium of demand and the region of supply, the 

 steamboat and rail-roads have given them a juxtaposition of ex- 

 istence. 



The tide of emigration will be diminished, in proportion as 

 the demand for labor is increased ; and that it must is inevitable, 

 when every water-fall becomes the site of a Lowell and a Dover, 

 which it requires no gift of prescience to announce, will be real- 

 ized at no very distant period. Commerce, navigation, manu- 

 factures and the mechanical arts have received an impulse, 



