54 AGRICULTURAL REPORT. [March, 



cessity aiid the habits of self-dependence. As an agricultural 

 community especially, the people should, as far as possible, 

 produce every article of first necessity, which they require for 

 consumption. There may be products utterly unsuited to their 

 soil and climate. It would be folly, where it is hopeless, to 

 contend against nature. But in all cases, and always, where 

 there is no obstacle absolutely insurmountable to persevering 

 labor, success is always a moral gain. 



In a pecuniary view, however, there can be no doubt that 

 Massachusetts would find her account in producing her own 

 bread from her own soil. Vast amounts of money are now 

 sent out of the State for bread. This capital applied to the cul- 

 tivation and improvement of her soil, would immensely increase 

 its productiveness. Mechanical labor, in general, terminates in 

 the article produced. Labor, judiciously and liberally applied 

 to agriculture, produces not merely the immediate and particu- 

 lar crop which is sought after ; but has a cumulative influence 

 in preparing the same land for other and larger products. The 

 value of the land thus cultivated, is often doubled, quadrupled, 

 and increased tenfold, by being thus rendered the more produc- 

 tive. 



It must be considered likewise, that where a community de- 

 pends upon exchange or barter, for the supply of its primary 

 wants, as, for example, where it exchanges its manufactured 

 articles, or the cash proceeds of these articles, for bread, this 

 bread must be subjected to the charges of freight and com- 

 mercial commissions, and to the support of a class of men 

 whose whole business consists in the transfer and exchange of 

 these commodities. Now, without derogating at all from the 

 respectability of this class of our fellow-citizens as a class, and 

 from the usefulness and necessity of their agency, to a certain 

 degree, wherever trade exists ; yet it is plain that they are not 

 a productive class ; but that their support is itself a tax upon 

 the labor and industry of the country. In an economical view, 

 it is therefore desirable, that they should exist in no larger 

 numbers than is necessary to transact the indispensable trade of 



