THE .MUTUAL WEZATIOjYS AND VBTEjY'DEWCE 

 OF OT^. T'KO'DUCIJYG lJV°7)Z r ST'liTEs. 



AN ADDRESS 



DELIVERED BEFORE THE BERKSHIRE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY, AT 

 PITTSFIELD, OCTOBER 6, 1870, 



By Prof. LEVI STOCKBRIDGE. 



Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen : 



Every branch of industry in which the people of our State arc 

 engaged, is not really a producing industry, though most of them 

 do, to some extent, contribute to the general welfare. 



Agricultural skill and labor, aided by natural law, creates from 

 the soil nearly all the food of the race, the raw material for artizan 

 and manufacturing labor, and the produce, the exchanging of which 

 is the life and profit of commerce, and is our leading productive in- 

 dustry, the primal cause of our prosperity and wealth, and the basis 

 on which all other industries rest. So likewise, our mining and 

 fishing industries are fundamental, and their harvests are, according 

 to their value, absolute gains to the national accumulations. 



Manufacturing of every variety, is productive industry, and the 

 importance of it can hardly be over estimated. But unlike agricul- 

 ture, mining and fishing, it adds nothing to the common stock from 

 nature's store-house, and its productions are the increased value 

 given to raw material by labor and intelligence, to fit them to satisfy 

 human want. Trade, commerce, exchange, is not a producing indus- 

 try. It contributes nothing to the general store, though it may and 

 does accumulate or centralize wealth previously created. As the 

 agent to bring the products of production to their consumers, it aids 



