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than have yet been known. It is for us to learn all the conditions 

 by which the most desirable kinds are secm-ed, and to be on the 

 alert to preserve them when they appear, that our labor may be 

 turned to the best advantage. What changes for the better have 

 been wrought in New England within the last twenty-five years ! 



I need not spend time to recount the changes in stock and fruit 

 that have been so marked. And may we not reasonably hope that 

 in this hne alone such improvements shall be made for the next 

 twenty-five years that one-fifth more product shall be secured by 

 the same labor than now ? If we can secure this result, we have- 

 here an important element in human progress, an important condi- 

 tion for the advance of civilization. Leisui*e will be gained not by 

 stinting oiu'selves in the necessaries or luxiu'ies of life, but because 

 less labor wiU be demanded to seciu-e abundauce. This grand law 

 of animal and plant variation, which some have fancied to be no- 

 law, but a sort of indefinite unfolding of one specific form into an- 

 other, is here seen to have special relation to the progress of the 

 human race, a relation so specific that if we recognize a creative in- 

 telhgence anjwhere, we must recognize it in the production of va- 

 rieties, not only as fitting animals and plants to the varied physical 

 conditions of the earth, but as perfecting their relations to man as 

 a progi-essive being. We may now have the best kinds known, but 

 five years from now we may have better peaches, grapes, and straw- 

 berries, better grains may wave in our fields, better flocks and hei'ds 

 cover oiu' hills. Man, capable of unlimited improvement, and with 

 the desire for such improvement, finds Nature perfectly adapted to 

 his constitution. 



The cultivator of the soil, though among the most independent,,. 

 like all civilized men has need of the labors of others. He does his 

 part to support manufactures and commerce. They must give him 

 fabrics in exchange for raw materials and such products as his own 

 soil and cUmate cannot supply. But utilization of labor demands 

 that every product shall he consumed as near the place of produc- 

 tion as possible. The finest Avheat may grow so far from market as 

 not to be worth the cost of transportation, and the golden corn maj' 

 become fuel instead of coal. Every mill, cxery artisan's shop adds 

 value to the fanner's land in its neighborhood. Every product con- 

 sumed there is saved the cost of transportation. If we must 

 send our wheat to Manchester and Sheffield and bring our wares 

 from them in turn, there is plainly a vast loss in transportation. 

 Every mile a bushel of wheat is carried adds to its cost but adds 



