Hiring industry of the Commonwealth, obtained and published three years since by 

 direction of the government, is universally admitted to be one of the most valuable 

 documents ever published by the State or in the State. It has exalted the credit of 

 the Commonwealth in the highest degree at home and abroad; and given her the 

 command of capital and resources for use and improvement, which otherwise, with 

 her limited territory and disdained soil, she could hardly have maintained. It has 

 inspired in her own citizens, an honest pride, a self-respect, a feeling of self-depend? 

 enc.e, which naturally grow in an attachment to home, and quench the desire of emi- 

 gration. More especially, and above all, it has revealed and established, even in 

 the most humble and the most sceptical minds, the great truth, that in honest, en- 

 lightened, well-directed, persevering, and productive industry, there are to be found 

 a means of wealth, an instrument of power, a source of comfort, a security to mo- 

 rals, and a ground of independence, which the underlaying of her whole territory 

 with mines of gold would not supply. 



What has been done for manufacturing and mechanical industry, your memorialist 

 is anxious should be extended to every other branch of productive labor, and more 

 especially to agriculture. It will not be difficult or expensive to accomplish it. It 

 may reveal in many respects a mortifying deficiency and a blameable neglect. The 

 knowledge of the facts in such case will more than any thing else conduce to amend- 

 ment. It may disclose to our gratification and surprise more favorable results than 

 we apprehend. Such a case would stimulate ambition, and encourage to greater 

 exertion. In any event an accurate ascertainment of our condition and products in 

 this matter, would have a powerful and favorable influence upon our agriculture; 

 and would prove a most important step in the way of improvement. 



It is believed, as already stated, by some highly intelligent and observing men, that 

 taking the whole territory into view, Massachusetts does not produce half a peck of 

 Indian corn to an acre. If this fact could be ascertained, in an authentic form, it 

 would, your memorialist believes, at once awaken the farmers to the great value of 

 this crop, and the losses suffered by the neglect of its cultivation. It would at once 

 occur to them that it could not be difficult for Massachusetts to raise at least one 

 bushel of com to the acre, or as many bushels of corn as she has acres in her territo- 

 ry. To say nothing of the fodder, and the means consequently of increasing her 

 live stock, this would be the actual creation, out of her soil, of four million, fiva 

 hundred thousand bushels of Indian corn. In such case we may consider half the 

 product in grain as the clear product of the crop. What an advantage to our habits, 

 our comfort, and our power of usefulness, if then, as clear gain beyond the cost of 

 labor and cultivation, we could produce annually in the State two million bushels of 

 Indian corn. What mine of gold in any country would be comparable to this "? 

 Hul this is only one article of agricultural produce. The knowledge of other pro- 

 ducts would be equally and similarly useful. 



