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terests. Happily for us our farms are generally small, 

 and their productions, instead of one or two great staples, 

 consist of hay, grain, vegetables, pork, butter, milk, 

 poultry, eggs, &c. These must be marketed often and 

 with little expense. In forming our ideas of farming as 

 a profession, we are apt to overlook these, and yet in the 

 aggregate they amount to more than all the cotton, rice 

 and sugar raised in the United States. Our forming in- 

 terests are closely connected with those of mechanism 

 and manufacturing. No civilization approaches towards 

 perfection that does not present this union, and the more 

 thorough the union, the more does each pursuit contribute 

 to the prosperity of the others. 



Every mechanic's shop, every steam engine at work, 

 every stream occupied by a mill, yields something to the 

 farmer's profit by furnishing a ready market for his pro- 

 duce, Avhile the perception of mutual dependence and 

 support benefits his moral nature. When one interest pre- 

 dominates the body suffers. There are in Massachusetts 

 towns in which there are no mechanics, no mills, scarcely 

 any trades. Farming is the sole business. The young 

 men remove to the west or to cities. The population 

 diminishes. The farms become fewer in number and of 

 larger size. The property is concentrated in few hands. 

 The social and moral condition of the town and usually 

 its interest in education deteriorates. But the gross 

 amount of agricultural productions is increased, and the 

 profits still more increased in consequence of the easier 

 control of capital. I consider this unfortunate. So far 

 as it extends, it approaches a social condition in which 

 the community is divided into classes with opposing in- 

 terests. It tends to lessen the number of small farmers 

 living on their own property, and to multiply laborers 

 who cannot hope to become land-owners. Were it not 

 for the unbounded territories of the west such a state of 



