11 



we may justly claim a gain of over 40,000 acres in the improved lands oi Berk- 

 shire. 



There have been great changes in our manufacturing and farming population. 

 Once the domestic loom was heard in every household. The early saw mills and 

 iron forges employed men from the farming community. Nearly all were native 

 horn. Now men from other lands come directly to our manufacturing establish- 

 ments. Often they bring their wives and children. Poor, and often friendless, 

 they settle down among us. They are willing to work. Their children attend our 

 schools. They find their churches awaiting them. Soon they get accustomed to 

 our life. They select the work for which they are best adapted. They find as 

 Judge Walker foretold in 1820, that the manufacturing business "induces a habit of 

 close calculation and accurate reasoning friendly to the improvement of the intel- 

 lectual powers. " They see that the habit of promptness, attention and inventive 

 genius, and aknowledge of the work brings a sure reward. If their own lack of edu- 

 cation keeps them back, they soon find that education will help their children. They 

 learn that many of the superintendents began at the bottom, that some of the em- 

 ployers were poor boys. They find that nearly all the great manufacturing indus- 

 tries began solely in hope and faith in earnest work. They gradually drink in the 

 idea of the possibilities under our institutions of permanent success. Do nol be 

 troubled; some day, if they are faithful, one of their ehildren may own the. mill. 



There was a time when everybody was a farmer. The minister, lawyer, doctor, 

 merchant, each had a patch of ground. Farming was the mainstay. There was a 

 great equality because the lands were more evenly divided among the people than 

 now. And what splendid communities there were in the good old days. Take 

 any of our towns — how the minds of our older people linger over the names of the 

 old families, and good sized families they were, too. Look at the character of the 

 population of Cheshire, Lanesboro and Sheffield, for example, even forty years 

 ago. They were the type of the solid New England yeomanry. They had good 

 farms, were worth anywhere from five to thirty thousand dollars each, and at di- 

 vine service or at town meeting were always on hand, independent, honest, thrifty, 

 hard working, generous men. They dressed simply, lived plainly, but they nour- 

 ished a manhood that to-day finds its representative in their descendants who have 

 aided in the settlement and up-building of every county that lies between us and 

 the Pacific. At our Berkshire Jubilee in 1K44, many returned, and we gave them 

 cordial greeting; but if an accurate count could be obtained, how many 1 

 men and women, think you, have gone out from our Berkshire farming communities 

 to help spread sound ideas of integrity, of the dignity of labor, and of loyalty to 

 the Union ! Every town boasts sons who have won in other fields high distinc- 

 tion, who have taken with them from these hills simple habits and honest traits. 



The population of our hill towns, it is said, is fast changing. Let no one 

 think, however, we are going backward. Then we were the nursery of men who 

 were to help mould the growth and destiny of the nation; now we are the training 

 school of many who have been denied advantages in the lands from whence they 

 come. Do not be deceived. There are many obtaining posession of the hill farms 

 to-day that the old families have abandoned who are beginning with the same fru- 

 gal habits, the same hard work, the same large families, almost the indentical farm 



