454 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



ever favor whatever government measures will promote those 

 interests. That such is not the usual course of those engaged 

 in other pursuits than those of agriculture is sufficiently appar- 

 ent from the whole tenor of government action in this and 

 other States and in the United States. While the statute books 

 abound with acts designed for the promotion of trade and 

 commerce and for the protection of manufactures, — acts that 

 in their operation not unfrequently bear with severity upon the 

 agricultural interest, — it is with extreme difficulty that any 

 legislative action can be obtained calculated to benefit directly 

 the cause of agricultural improvement. 



The injustice and impolicy of such a niggardly course in ref- 

 erence to this paramount interest becomes still more apparent 

 when we consider that, besides furnishing to a great degree the 

 actual and substantial wealth and capital of the country, agri- 

 culture is the employment which engages more than three- 

 fourths of the whole population of the country, and is the great 

 reservoir of labor. Wise statesmen profess that it is the great 

 duty of government to protect the labor of the country ; that 

 is, to secure to it employment and remunerating prices against 

 the competition of labor in other countries. How better can 

 this policy be carried out than by promoting the cause of agri- 

 culture, since that pursuit is the great employment of labor ? 

 If this interest is fostered and encouraged by government, the 

 laborers engaged therein will thrive and benefit in proportion : 

 their labor will be rendered lighter, their time spent to more 

 profit, and the income of their labor enhanced. As agriculture 

 is confessedly the great reservoir of labor, by the rise or fall 

 of which all other labor is affected, and to some extent regu- 

 lated, is it not, then, apparent that whatever benefits the labor 

 employed in agriculture, whether it be legislative or social 

 action, must produce a corresponding improvement in the con- 

 dition of all other labor, however employed ? 



Of late years this great and all-important interest of agri- 

 culture has received more of the attention of prominent and 

 influential men in our community than heretofore ; and the di- 

 rect consequence thereof has been the application of science to 

 its operations to an extent never before known, and with the 

 most beneficial results as to the improvement in the character 



