ADDRESS. 



DOES FAEMmG PAT?" 



BY HON. LEVI STOCKBRIDGE. 



Your Association was organized and has been supported by piib- 

 lic appropriation, by private donations, and much hard labor, for 

 the piirpose of stimulating, fostering and improving the agriculture 

 of this section of the State, to the end that both private and pubHc 

 ■wealth may be advanced. And it seems to me that any one who 

 has cai'efully noted the changes that have taken^place during the 

 last twenty years in our farms, our farm-houses, barns and their 

 surroundings, in the pecuniary condition of our farmers, in their 

 general intelligence, in their knowledge of, and success in their 

 business, must be satisfied that in a good degree these results have 

 been attained ; yet the question is being continually asked — " Does 

 farming pay ? " Within the last six months it has been often dis- 

 cussed in agricultural journals, and has been answered in the nega- 

 tive and affirmative in about equal proportions. And the de- 

 bate is yet going on, as if it was a new question, and the relations 

 of agriculture to private prosperity and national wealth, and the 

 value of labor and its results in this department, were little under- 

 stood. Taking a broad view of this matter, the decided presump- 

 tion is that farming pays. The sum of the nation's present wealth 

 and its annual increase is solely the product of its producing indus- 

 tries. Those which create valuable new material, or which put that 

 material into form and place needed to su^^ply human want. Sim- 

 ple exchange, even if dignified by the name of commerce, adds not 

 a farthing to the accumulations of the i:)roducers ; and there are 

 many callings, pursuits and professions, acknowledged to be lauda- 

 ble aad honorable, which coutribate notbiag to the general store, 



