22 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



general condition of mankind. The impulse imparted to 

 commerce by the introduction of the steamboat and the rail- 

 road is something marvellous. In 1770, the exports of Great 

 Britain amounted to $65,000,000 ; in 1870, to $1,220,000,000. 

 The shipping owned in England has increased from half a 

 million to seven million tons. The amount insured — just 

 think of this — the amount insured rose from $850,000,000 to 

 $6,800,000,000. These figures are so vast that they make 

 but a slight impression upon the mind. The intellect is con- 

 fused and bewildered, as when it seeks for the first time to 

 grasp the duration of the geologic periods, or the distance of 

 the stars. With all this material development there has been 

 a corresponding intellectual development. A large majority 

 of our most instructive books are the product of the last one 

 hundred years. Nearly all our prose romances, and most of 

 our poetry, history and miscellaneous literature belong to this 

 same glorious epoch in origin and spirit. We now write ten 

 times as many books, and publish fifty times as many volumes 

 annually, as they did in the last century. The United States 

 turns out two thousand, and Great Britain four thousand new 

 books every year, and the other Aryan nations probably bring 

 the total figure up to fifteen thousand, whereas, before the 

 middle of the last century, the number was probably not 

 more than fifteen hundred. Besides the books, we have now 

 seven thousand newspapers which are new, and in the 

 aggregate furnish as much material for reading, and con- 

 tribute nearly as much to education, as the books. But there 

 is another point, interesting and of vital significance, to be 

 noticed here. With this increase of material and intellectual 

 riches, there has been a corresponding increase in the num- 

 bers of this active, energetic, and brilliant Aryan race. 

 Within a hundred years it has increased from one hundred 

 and twenty millions to three hundred and sixty millions. 

 This is something altogether remarkable. Nothing of the 

 kind has taken place before since the historical era began. 

 The Roman empire had about one hundred and twenty mill- 

 ion inhabitants, and the same territory, after a lapse of 

 eighteen hundred years, had no more. Egypt, three thousand 

 years ago, and Spain and Mexico before the Spanish conquest, 

 had more inhabitants than now. This wonderful increase is 



