1840.] SENATE— No. 36. 57 



oftentimes fully repay, are made to yield an income equal to 

 the interest on a capital of one and two hundred dollars per 

 acre ; and to pay at the same time, the expenses of keeping 

 them in a productive condition. 



In considering the moral influences of agriculture, the con- 

 sciousness of independence, resting upon the basis of a con- 

 scious ability to supply our own wants, is not to be overlooked 

 as a sentiment in the highest degree favorable to good morals. 

 This conviction calls out the best powers of our physical and 

 intellectual nature. There is a rich pleasure, not unmingled 

 with an honest pride, in eating bread raised by our own hands. 

 There is a duty and a pleasure in encouraging domestic indus- 

 try under any and every form. The supplies of the products 

 of foreign labor, come to us too often mingled with the painful 

 associations of oppressed, defrauded, and unrequited toil. The 

 products of our own honest industry and free labor, are subject 

 to none of these painful abatements. Massachusetts will find 

 the true foundation of independence only in rendering her soil 

 productive ; as far as possible cutting off her reliance upon for- 

 eign supplies ; and abating, or supplying from her own re- 

 sources and soil, those wants, which render her dependent upon 

 a foreign power, for that which her own soil is capable of pro- 

 ducing. 



Above all things else, she should determine with honest 

 pride, to raise what she eats ; or else, to eat what she raises. 

 She can produce her own wheat. On new lands there is sel- 

 dom any failure, unless one, which proceeds directly from ne- 

 glect ; or from atmospheric influences, which no sagacity can 

 foresee or control, and which are peculiar to no country. To 

 accidents of this nature, all crops are liable. Wheat in general 

 is, in all countries, considered a less hardy plant than many 

 others ; yet I have the settled opinion of at least six intelligent 

 and practical farmers in the State, that, as far as their experi- 

 ence goes, and it has been the experience in each of these cases 

 of nearly a quarter of a century, wheat with them is as certain 

 as almost any crop which they cultivate. The returns will 



