7 



gate this tigher culture. "Every principle of civilization," says Guizot, "be* 

 fore it can be of any use to Europe must first pass through France." So New 

 England has given birth and early strength to opinions that were one day to 

 become laws, though New York has had an eijual work in crystallizing them 

 mto codes. So New England has originated the methods of American labor. 

 And when we reach the point where new lands cannot or will not be sought 

 but old lands restored, the skill, enterprise, economy and capital of New Eng- 

 land will be required and found ready for the work. Brains, too, are needed 

 for a good crop. "How did you raise those cranberries ?" was enquired of one 

 who had the premium crop. "Brains," was the brief answer. "Whereon 

 airth," was the next question, "did you get brains enough to kiver a cranberry 

 mash ?" Skill, and economy too, and not expenditure for costly manures. 

 "John," said his lordship to his farmer, "John, do you know that the whole 

 strength of a cord of manure does not weigh 70 pounds, and. that the rest is use- 

 less ? John, the time will come when the fertilizer will l)e carried to the field 

 in one pocket!" "Aye, your lordship, and the crop brought back in the other. " 



And now may I be pardoned — nay, I shall ask no pardon of man or woman 

 for the truth I am about to say — for indicating the evil which reaches widest 

 and strikes us deepest ; an evil that is giving over our national character, reli- 

 gion and life into foreign hands. I do not mean intemperance with disease, 

 madness, ruin and death for its executors, for its curse compared with this is 

 only a specialty. It is not the lack of faith to which tendency the New Eng- 

 land mind, they say, through its activity predisposes itself — not the betrayals of 

 trust — the many revealed and the many more yet hidden- until the country turns 

 in sorrow like Washington to Lafayette after Arnold'is treason, saying, ''wliom 

 can we trust now ?" None of these, — it is the childlessness of our New England 

 homes. Often it stands for bereavement, but far ottener for nameless crime 

 which blasts a nation's life, which is shaming, by comparison, our Protestant 

 church and faith, hardening the human heart into irreverence for human life 

 in all its stages. Even though life were sometimes crushed out by its appointed 

 and assumed burdens it is better to be Abel than Cain. 



Farming in New England must be restored. We shall not be coaxed 

 but compelled. We are not now using persuasion but prophecy. For we 

 are fallen upon days when Necessity, not preference rules, and when 

 necessity takes the form of human progress, compelled by the laws of 

 Providence, who would wish a better master or guide. Prices, products, 

 location of land, elsewhere will compel its cultivation. The West is not all a 

 garden or a river bottom. There are portions whose exhaustless soil and fav- 

 ored location defy competition, but the exceptional instances are now rare. 

 Again no one state will ever have the monopoly of manufacturing that Massa- 

 chusetts once enjoyed. The Merrimac may continue to drive more machinery 

 than any other river ; the Housatonic pushes its magnificent mill power down 

 to the ocean ; but the Mohawk the Genesee, the James, and the Niagara send- 

 ing its compressed air to Buffalo, are at least rivals. 



Especially must Western Massachusetts have some readier way to the coal 

 fields, which way at the same time shall give another outlet to Berkshire. There 



