' THEINFLUENCE 
 
 OF 
 
 MANUFACTURES, 
 
 PUBLIC IMPROVEMENTS, SCIENCE AND CAPITAL 
 
 AGMI€UL,TUIIE3 
 
 AN ADDRESS, DELIVERED BT 
 
 E. H. DERBY, ESQ., 
 
 AT CONCORD, MASSACHUSETTS, OCTOBER Ctu, 1 34 7. 
 
 BEFORE 
 
 THE MIDDLESEX SOCIETY OF 
 
 HUSBANDMEN AND MANUFACTURERS. 
 
 CONCORD: 
 
 DANIEL H. ADAMS, PRINTER 
 
 1847. 
 
ADDRESS. 
 
 Agriculture lias become essential to life. The forest, the 
 lake, and the ocean, cannot' sustain the increasing family of 
 man. Population declines ivith a declining cultivation, and na¬ 
 tions have ceased to be uith the extinction of their agriculture. 
 
 IVlien harvests arc e.xuberant, joy and health follow in their 
 train; but let delusive prosperity draw industry from agricul¬ 
 ture, let an insidious disease attack one of its important pro¬ 
 ducts, let an insect or a parasite fasten on a single esculent, and 
 mark the effect upon commerce and human life. 
 
 Upon such an event all business is deranged ; the commer¬ 
 cial marine of the world proves itself unorjual to the crisis, — 
 sloops-of-war and frigates become carriers of grain. ■Ware¬ 
 houses, canals, railroads, and ports cannot meet the e.xigency; 
 masses of specie flow from the guarded treasuries of the old 
 world to the rude cabins of the prairies; manufactures and 
 public improvements stop in their course. Paminc and pesti¬ 
 lence invade provinces and states, and the pale survivors, reck¬ 
 less of those ties which bind man to his birth-place, brave storms 
 and shipwreck, sickness and death, on the route to now .and 
 untried regions. 
 
 A glance at such events, which the present year has wit¬ 
 nessed, must impress us with the vast importance of Agricul¬ 
 ture, both as an occupation and a science. 
 
 Agriculture in ancient times was cstoomed .and honored. In 
 classic Greece and Komo it was the theme of the popular poets 
 
4 
 
 of the age, and was not deemed unworthy of distinguished war¬ 
 riors and statesmen. We read of Cieero at his Tusculan villa, 
 of Cato at his firm, of Cineinnatus leaving his plough to com¬ 
 mand the armies of the Republic, while the gi-eat naturalist, 
 Pliny, in his beautiful letters, prides himself on his vineyards. 
 
 The overSow of the hide, the fertilizer of Egypt, has been 
 celebrated for centuries as the great festival of the country, 
 and in that “ central flowery land ” which claims such remote 
 antiquity, the sovereign of three hundi-ed millions, — “ the son 
 of heaven, whose person is almost too sacred to be seen, whose 
 imperial despatch is received amid burning incense and prostra¬ 
 tion, and in whose presence no one dares speak but in a whis¬ 
 per,”— annually exhibits himself to his subjects holding a 
 plough in honor of Agi-iculture. 
 
 In England, too, whose nobles shrink from all conne.vion with 
 trade, Agriculture is highly honored. Eai-ls, dukes, and princes 
 preside at agricultural festivals, compete for prizes, and do not 
 disdain to write ti-eatises on the cultm-e of roots, the rota¬ 
 tion of crops, and manufacture of composts. Sii’ Robert Peel, 
 the great statesman of the age, is one day bearing down by his 
 eloquence the opposition of Parliament to his vigorous and en¬ 
 lightened policy, and another discussing the prospects of Agri¬ 
 culture among the fanners of Tamworth. 
 
 It is, too, with mingled pleasure and pride, that we recur to 
 the fact that the hero and statesman who led the armies of our 
 Revolution was himself a practical farmer. Amid all the e.v- 
 citement, harassing duties and embarrassments of a protracted 
 war, he directed by letters the operations of his farm, and final¬ 
 ly retired from the lughest position to which talent and patriot¬ 
 ism could aspire, followed by the love of his counti-ymen, to 
 devote to Agriculture the close of his life; and it is a little re¬ 
 markable his example has been followed by nearly all who have 
 succeeded to the office of President. 
 
 In view of these facts, may we not ask, has Agriculture en¬ 
 joyed in Xew England the prominence and popularity to which 
 it may well aspire j and is the position of the fanner, lord of 
 
5 
 
 the soil here, and but a tenant in the old world, duly appre¬ 
 ciated ? 
 
 It is obvious to the reflecting mind, that the farmer has been 
 affected by depressing influences; but is it not as apparent, 
 that they are ceasing to operate ? 
 
 Our fathers did not enjoy, as farmers, the privileges which 
 we possess. The country, emerging from a long war, was de¬ 
 ficient in capital. Implements and buildings were rude and 
 defective ; a few small seaports and fishing towns formed then- 
 principal markets, and access to these was by no means easy, 
 for the bridle-path blazed through the forest, the ford and the 
 ferry wore but a poor substitute for the county road, the turn¬ 
 pike, canal, and railroad. 
 
 At a period, too, when the wars of Europe made us the car¬ 
 riers of the world, it is not astonishing that talent and enterprise 
 shoidd have been drawn from the secluded home of the farmer 
 to tlie perilous “ march upon the deep,” to the uncertain pur¬ 
 suits of trade, or to the sharp competition of professional life, 
 gi'owing with the growth of commerce, or be tempted to ex¬ 
 change the rudeness of country life for the enervating refine¬ 
 ment of the city. 
 
 Temperance, taste and progressive art, education and the 
 weeldy press, had not yet gilded the home of the farmer ; judi¬ 
 cious enterprise had not yet drawn the daughters of New 
 England from the distaff to the w-ater-falls, and enlivened the 
 adjacent districts by the creation of valuable markets. Con¬ 
 trast Massachusetts to-day with Massachusetts half a century 
 since. Counties chequered with factory villages, tied together 
 by a fast-spreading net-work of railroads, sparkling with school- 
 houses, churches, and tasteful residences, and improving farms, 
 and peopled by an intelligent and energetic race; compare 
 these with all that preceded them, and wo shall find much to 
 cheer us in the contrast, without detracting in any degree from 
 the courage and patriotism of our progenitors. If, in addition 
 to the progress of the country, we take into account the vast 
 increase of wealth, the advance in the mechanic arts, the dis- 
 1 « 
 
6 
 
 coveries of cliemistry, shall we not arrive at the conclusion that 
 Agriculture now presents a new aspect, assumes a new impor¬ 
 tance, and offers new attractions ? 
 
 Let me invite you, on this occasion, to consider the degree 
 of influence which science and capital may exert upon Agri¬ 
 culture; 
 
 To examine some of the effects which the growth .of manu¬ 
 factures, commerce, and public improvements, produce upon 
 the agricultural interest; 
 
 And to briefly discuss the interests, prospects, and policy of 
 the farmers of Middlesex. 
 
 in estimating the importance of science and capital to Agri¬ 
 culture, we learn from the lessons of experience, that a fertile 
 soil alone does not carry agriculture to perfection. Should we 
 seek the spots where agriculture gives the largest and most re¬ 
 munerative returns for a given space, we should find them not 
 on the fertile banks of the I^ile or the Ganges, the rich plains 
 and valleys of Sicily, or the prmries of the West, where a 
 virgin soil and low prices attract so many youthful cultivators. 
 Far otherwise. Ton must look to Flanders and Holland. 
 There science and capital combined, in a harsh climate, have 
 rescued vast wastes from the ocean, and converted sterile 
 marshes and barren sands into productive fields, the very gar¬ 
 den of Europe. Or look at England, our parent land, where 
 the same powerftd combination has transformed the sandy plains 
 of Iforfolk, for centuries abandoued to the rabbit, into luxuriant 
 fields of wheat, clover, and turnips, and changed the fens of 
 Lincolnshire, which encircle the old town of Boston, — fens for 
 centuries the resort of wild ducks, geese, and other birds of 
 passage,—into the granary of England. 
 
 The soil of Bel^nm was ori^ally sand and clay alone. It 
 has been enriched by ashes and composts until it has become a 
 rich, black, loamy mould. Tanks are provided on the farms 
 for liquids, and each cow * is estimated to produce ten tons of 
 
 ’ See McCulloch. 
 
7 
 
 solid and twelve of liquid manures. Every expedient is resorted 
 to both to increase their quantity and to improve their quality. 
 Rotations of crops are followed, and the result of these efforts 
 is, that Belgium sustains a population of three hundred and fifty 
 people, sixty-seven cattle, and seventeen horses to the square 
 mile, usually raises her own bread-stufis, and exports wheat, 
 madder, flax, wool, and bark, to other parts of Europe. In 
 Holland, where the dike, steam engine, and wind-mill arc em¬ 
 ployed to prevent the incursion of the sea upon land gained 
 from its bosom, a population of two hundred and foimteen to the 
 mile is sustamed, and large exports made of butter, cheese, and 
 other agricultural products. The average value of land is 
 nearly three hundred dollars per acre, although it is burthened 
 with oppressive taxes.* 
 
 To learn the causes of the astonishing fertility and large re¬ 
 turns flowing from these conquests of art over nature, we must 
 recur to the history of Belgium and Holland. 
 
 Eor centuries they have been the scats of commerce and the 
 arts. In the eleventh century, Ghent and Bruges, cities of 
 Belgium, wore Important commercial towns, and supplied the 
 courts of Europe with silks and tapestries. 
 
 In the fifteenth contm-y, Ghent contained fifty thousand weav¬ 
 ers, and Bruges and Antwerp had each two hundred thousand 
 people, and w’ere the marts of the civilized world. In the sk- 
 teenth century, the harbor of Antwerp often contained two 
 thousand five hundred vessels, her gates were daily entered by 
 five hundred loaded wagons, and her magnificent Exchange, 
 still standing, erected before the discovery of America, was ah 
 tended twice a day by five thousand mei'chants. 
 
 The comrtry was covered with roads and canals ; capital and 
 art -were applied to agriculture. The effect of a population 
 growing in numbers and wealth was to stimulate the efforts 
 of those engaged in husbandry, and for six hundred years 
 
 ’ Holliind annually exports thirty-eight million pounds of cheese, and 
 eighteen million pounds of butter. Tlie average rate of the land-tax on 
 farms is ten to fourteen guilders per arpent, about §3 per aere. 
 
commerce, mannfactnres and agriculture grew together until 
 tlie latter attained the height which has survived the wars 
 and revolutions which nearly prostrated the fonner. 
 
 Holland, too, has been for centuries the seat of manufac¬ 
 tures, commerce, and wealth. In the seventeenth century, 
 Holland was the great naval power of the age, and controlled 
 the trade of the Indies. Her shipping, nine hundred ■ thousand 
 tons, equalled that of aU the other powers of Europe, and her 
 great cities muted together and to the Ehine by canals, the 
 admiration of Europe, were each devoted to some great branch 
 of manufactures or commerce. From these, Agriculture re¬ 
 ceived a ntighty impulse. 
 
 When England became the queen of the seas and the patron 
 of the arts, when she had invented the steam engine and the 
 spinning jenny and applied her beds of coal to the production 
 of iron, when she had opened her canals and begun to build 
 dochs and harbors, a stimulus was given to agriculture, and 
 wealth and science were drawn to districts which had lain dor¬ 
 mant for centuries. They were both applied to the improve¬ 
 ment of land. Soils were analyzed, tools of all kinds improved, 
 lime and plaster transported by canals to the spots that 
 required them, bone-dust collected from the battle-fields of 
 Europe, from La Plata and California; dikes and drains con¬ 
 structed ; oil cake, imported even fr-om om- county of Middle¬ 
 sex, to fatten her cattle and eni-ich her soil; and vessels wore 
 sent around Cape Horn to procure the excrement of birds. The 
 produce of agriculture has been thus more than doubled, and 
 her inhabitants carried to an average of thi'ee hundred per 
 square mile, consuming food and occupying houses vastly supe¬ 
 rior to those of their fathers. 
 
 England and Wales, with less than sixty thousand square 
 miles of surface, sustain eighteen million people, twenty-six mil¬ 
 lion sheep, four million head of cattle, and one million five hun¬ 
 dred thousand horses in a condition umivaEed in any section of 
 the world, and produce ammally beside at least two hundred 
 and forty milli on bushels of bread-stuffs. 
 
The county of Lancashii-e, the great seat of the cotton man¬ 
 ufacture, the Middlesex of England, presents results more 
 strlldng than those of the island at large. It has increased with 
 a rapidity almost unexampled in the history of industry, and 
 exhibits a population of one million eight hundred thousand, or 
 one thousand to the mile, in a space of hut eighteen hundred 
 square miles, an area barely equal to our two counties of Wor¬ 
 cester and Jliddlesex. 
 
 Lancashire, like our Middlesex, is studded with factories and 
 covered by a net-work of rail-roads and canals. Its soil, like 
 that of Middlesex, is devoted principally to the culture of grass, 
 fruit, and esculent vegetables, while its bread-stuffs are drawn 
 from other districts. 
 
 There would seem to be somethiug congenial to agriculture 
 in the very atmosphere of commerce and manufactures, for we 
 read in the history of Carthage, by its conquerors, that around 
 that ancient seat of trade and manufactures, and under the 
 burning sun of Africa, there were clustered beautiful farms and 
 covmtry seats, canals, olive trees, and vineyards. 
 
 The achievements of science and capital m the agriculture of 
 the old world, lead us to appreciate aright their value on this 
 side of the Atlantic, and to take a more correct view of their 
 importance and uses. A few rash experiments here, guided by 
 no practical skill, may have led some to distrust theories and 
 the value of book learning; others have looked with a jaun¬ 
 diced eye on the accumulation of wealth, have regarded its 
 votaries merely as a mercenary race, a class useless to the com¬ 
 munity, instead of viewing them as stewards accumulating 
 property for the benefit of society ; forgetful that their wealth, 
 whether invested in hanks, shi^js, docks, or avenues of trade, or 
 in loans upon land, is giving an impulse to the whole counti-y. 
 
 To insure the progress of agriculture, it is for science to in¬ 
 dicate the path, to suggest the elements of the soil, to point out 
 its deficiencies, and the appropriate remedy; to present the 
 improvements in tools, fences, and buildings, and the discoveries 
 of art; but in vain would she place her finger upon these unless 
 
10 
 
 her ally, capital, stould follow and fui'nisli the stochs, tools, 
 structures, and fertilizing substances, and aid in creating ave¬ 
 nues from the farm to the market. 
 
 There was a time, but few years since, when the credit of 
 our State and Country, now so elevated, was deeply depressed; 
 when the bonds of Massachusetts found no purchasers. Science 
 had planned that great avenue which makes Boston one of the 
 seaports of the West; but means were wanting. By whom, 
 think you, were they furnished ? By those unfortunate L-isb- 
 men who seek here a refuge from bad laws and national calam¬ 
 ities,— who toil upon our public works, and to whom we owe 
 all our canab, wharves, and raih-oads. The quiet accumula¬ 
 tions of these small capitalists in the Savings Bank of Boston 
 absorbed more than half a million of our bonds, and fimshed 
 the Western Eallvoad. 
 
 The progress of towns, cities, and manufactories, has created 
 wealth, nurtured science, and aided their diffusion. Towns and 
 cities have reacted on the country, have created a demand and 
 liberal price for its products, and furnished it with the means 
 of fertility; while towns and cities may trace their expansion to 
 commerce and the arts. 
 
 Commerce and manufactures have been fostered and stimu¬ 
 lated by public improvements, which have collected and dis¬ 
 tributed their mateiiab and products. The alliance thus cc 
 mented between the ship, the canal-hoat, the car and the 
 spindle, the forge and the plough, has created great and pros¬ 
 perous nations, and verified Lord Bacon’s oft-repeated theory, 
 that three things were essential to the prosperity of a country, 
 —fertile fields, busy workshops, and easy communication. 
 
 While in England, the Netherlands, and portions of France, 
 Germany, and Italy, all these advantages are enjoyed, there 
 are extensive regions, m which the fertility of natm-e is neu¬ 
 tralized by the want of facilities of mtercourse; and, for cen¬ 
 turies past, commerce and manufactures, population and agii 
 culture, have langubhed or receded. MTren the Council of 
 Castile were invited by an eminent engineer to open a canal 
 
11 
 
 from Madiid to the sea, they declined the mvitation, coming to 
 the sage conclusion, that if God had designed a navigable river 
 for Madrid, he Tvould have made it liimself; and Spain, es¬ 
 tranged from commerce and improvements, has made so little 
 progr-ess, that it has been wittily suggested that were Adam to 
 revisit this sphere, he would find the face of nature less 
 changed, and feel himself more at home in Spain, than in any 
 other region. Wlule in England and the Netherlands the sur¬ 
 plus of one district supplies the deficiencies of another, in Spain 
 it is not unusual for one province to be desolated by famine, 
 while an excessive crop in another has filled the granaries to 
 overflowing, and made wheat comparatively worthless. 
 
 In Spain, land is stationary or declining with the decay of 
 towns and villages; hut near the towns and cities, the canals 
 and railways of the flourishing regions we have described, land 
 rises in value with the improvement of cultivation, with the in¬ 
 creased prices for its products, and with the progressive de¬ 
 mand for sites for warehouses and country seats. It is enriched 
 by its very vicinity to the centres of population, by the fertiliz. 
 ing materials it derives from them, whose weight and bulk forbid 
 their carriage into remote districts of the country. In this respect 
 lands in populous districts have a decided and preponderating 
 advantage over those of the interior. 
 
 The progress of improvements and the growth of towns in 
 the United States are producing the same efiects we have wit¬ 
 nessed in Europe. 
 
 The Erie and Champlain Canals, with the application of 
 steam to the Hudson, have created in the last twenty years 
 great cities at Buffalo, Bochester, Utica, Albany, Troy, and 
 Broohlyn, and made New York the third, if not the second 
 commercial city of the world. 
 
 Singular as it may seem, many Influential residents in the 
 city of New York long opposed the Erie Canal; her leading 
 editors ridiculed the “ big ditch” of Clinton, unable to distin¬ 
 guish, through the dim vista of the future, the stately ware¬ 
 houses, palaces and churches, elegant avenues, and the forests 
 
12 
 
 of masts, -nitli -wliicli it ttos to embellisli the island of Man¬ 
 hattan. 
 
 Orange and Duchess counties anticipated that the ivheat and 
 dairy produce of the Genesee valley vrould depress their farms, 
 although more contiguous to the market of New York. On 
 Long Island, a gentleman of my acquaintance attended an elec¬ 
 tion where his friend, the successful candidate, was chosen on 
 the ground of his opposition to the canal. 
 
 But the firms of Orange and Duchess still mfuntain theii- 
 ascendancy, and such was the impulse given to Long Island 
 hy the growth of New York after the Erie Canal had opened, 
 such the increased demand for com, hay, fiiel, poultry, and 
 other produce, that my acquaintance, on a second visit, found 
 his friend again a candidate on the ground that he had become 
 a warm supporter of the Erie Canal. 
 
 If canals have contributed to such results on both sides of 
 the Atlantic, what is it reasonable to expect from the discovery 
 of railroads, an improvement rapidly superseding the “ ne plus 
 ultra ” of the preceding age ? 
 
 The same power which draws a ton upon a turnpike, efraws 
 fifteen upon a level railroad, and with fourfold the speed. The 
 railroad combines the properties of the coach, the wagon, and 
 the race-horse. With sixfold the speed of the canal, it regards 
 not the snows of winter, and scales mountains impervious to 
 canals. How far is it essential to our seaports and factories ? 
 They reqtdre a constant and nninterrupted commmiication, 
 which canals cannot give, as the ice closes them nearly half 
 the year. 
 
 I^at do factories require ? The cotton and wool of distant 
 states and countries; the iron and coal of Pennsylvania and 
 Cape Breton; the lumber and lime of Maine; the indigo and 
 dm^ of India; the oil of the Pacific and of Afiica; and the 
 fictory girls of aU New England. Obliterate the railroads, 
 and would their business he worth pursuing ? 
 
 Ohfiterate the railroads, and would not half of Boston go to 
 decay ? 
 
At the commencement of the rahroacl system in New Eng¬ 
 land, some fears Avere entertained, that the etfect might be 
 injurious to the farms Avhich encircle mm metropolis. 
 
 This opinion ryas countenanced for a brief period by the com¬ 
 petition of the new milk-farms along the line of the Boston and 
 lYorcester Railroad Avith the damies in the suburbs, and by the 
 depression of agricultui’al products through the country which 
 followed the commercial revidsion of 1837. 
 
 Doubtless some changes were effected; but haym not the 
 suburban dairy fai-ms been required for building lots at treble 
 prices ? Are not the streets of the metropolis extended far 
 into the country on seven great lines, and is not land sold by 
 the foot more than ten miles distant from the Merchants’ Ex¬ 
 change of Boston ? And are not farms once supposed to be 
 ruined by the location of railroads, like the Winship and Hun- 
 neAvell estates in Brighton and Newton, at least quadrupled in 
 their value ? Have they not shoAvn that the railroad is by no 
 means the road to rum ? Do not milk, butter, corn, oats, pork, 
 beef command remunerating prices, the latter in particular, and 
 Avhen you cannot buy a surloin in the Quincy Market under a 
 shilling a pound. If, occasionally, produce from the interior 
 competes in our market with that of farms in the vicinity, does 
 it effect more than a change of use, or of the course of cultiva¬ 
 tion, and does not the increased size of the market draw in the 
 market wagon from a larger circle ? Or if any temporary de¬ 
 pression occurs, are not farms in the outskirts of the counties 
 around Boston, more elevated than the adjacent farms are 
 depressed ? 
 
 MTiat would be the position of the farms around Boston to¬ 
 day, if our railroad and inland marts had no existence, — were 
 Ave to banish the hundred millions of wealth and the one hun¬ 
 dred thousand people winch have accumulated in and around 
 Boston smee the first movement in railroads, and send them to 
 New York and New Orleans, where they would have been 
 planted, if such movement had not been made ? 
 
 Do the one million of tons moved annually by the railroads 
 
14 
 
 out of Boston, doubling once m four years, give no impulse to 
 industry in and around tbe city, or do these great wks of 
 amelioration, which hear industry, the only marketable com¬ 
 modity of the poor man, to the best theatre for its exercise, give 
 no increased value to industry itself? 
 
 Does not every house erected in and around the city, and 
 every ship added to its roHs, require nearly an acre of land to 
 supply its immediate demands, and is not every such house and 
 ship a market ? And are not every drain, vault, and chimney, 
 a source of fertility ? Are, or are not, the effects which attend 
 the progress of the railroads of Massachusetts, injurious or ben¬ 
 eficial to the county of Middlesex, and what are its position and 
 prospects with reference to agriculture ? * 
 
 Our counfy of Middlesex embraces an area of eight hundred 
 square miles, and its population, rapidly increasing since the 
 census of 1840, may now be safely estimated at 120,000, or 
 one hundred and fi% to the square mile. 
 
 The surface presents no high mountains or deep valleys; but, 
 diversified by hill and dale, meadow and plam, and watered by 
 four large riveis, tbe Merrimac, Nashua, Concord, and Charles, 
 offers numerous waterfalls, and sites for manufactories. 
 
 Although modem art has, to a great extent, superseded hu¬ 
 man labor, the constant progress of manufactures in Mddlesex 
 creates a demand for operatives far exceeding the home supply. 
 Prolific as the county may he in one branch of production, that 
 of boys and gjrls, all New England, and even New York, Nova 
 Scoria, and Canada, have contributed to its supply. More than 
 twenty-six thousand operatives are now assembled in Middlese.x 
 
 * The effect of railroads, thus far, appears to be to ameliorate the condi¬ 
 tion of those residing at a distance &om seaports, and to eleTate the value 
 of their farms and products, without depressing property nearer to the 
 great markets. The increased resources of the interior are illustrated by 
 the fact, that in Angnst last nearly three millions were subscribed in the 
 eountry for a short railroad from Manchester to Lawrence, while it took 
 nearly twenty years, half a century since, to raise three quarters of a mil¬ 
 lion to construct the Middlesex Canal. 
 
15 
 
 from tlmt wide region which lies between the Hudson, the St. 
 Lawi'ence, and the sea. 
 
 The annual produce of their industry appears in the cottons 
 and woollens of Lowell, 'Waltham, Dracut, Billerica, Shirley, 
 and Framingham ; in the ships of Medford; the lead of Con¬ 
 cord ; the soap, candles, and glass of Cambridge; the cabinet- 
 ware and leather of Charlestown, lYoburn, and Reading ; the 
 paper of Newton and Pepperoll; the boots and shoes of Na¬ 
 tick, Holliston, Hopkinton, Stoneham, South Reading, and 
 Malden, and the varied manufactures of many other flourishing 
 towns. 
 
 In manufactures, Middlesex annually produces twenty-three 
 millions of dollars; and is, in tliis great department of indus¬ 
 try, the leading county of the State and of the Union. 
 
 The annual products and manufactures in this single county 
 are more than double the average exportation of bread-stuffs, 
 from the whole Union, and would pay for more than a moiety 
 of all the flour, grain, and corn exported during the season of 
 famine. Rapid as has been the improvement of agriculture, 
 and wide as has been its expansion in new counties and states 
 during the last twenty years, the advance of manufactures has 
 been quite as rapid ; and, if there be truth in the remark of a 
 great British statesman, that every loom stopped in England 
 stops a dozen ploughs, hov,' many American ploughs have the 
 looms of Middlesex sot in motion ? 
 
 The county of Middlesex is alike distinguished by railroad 
 entorprize. It is the great railroad county of the state, being 
 intersected by the four inland lines from Boston to Netv York, 
 Vermont, Now Hampshire, and Maine, besides various cross 
 routes and branches. 
 
 The lines ah-eady constructed or chartered in this county, 
 and sure to be finished, exceed two hundred miles in length, 
 furnishing one mile of rails for less than four square miles of 
 surface. 
 
 So numerous have these lines become, that the average dis¬ 
 tance between them does not exceed four miles, and the popu- 
 
16 
 
 ktion of tlie county live ■wittun an average distance of on< 
 mile from tie iron way. 
 
 Tie combined effect of manufactures and raik-oads has bech 
 to furnish Middlesex with numerous markets. AYitiin its area 
 are tie three cities of Lowell, Charlestown, and Cambridge, of 
 recent growth, with an aggregate population of sixty tbousam], 
 and at least a dozen towns, with a population vaiying from 
 two to five thousand each. 
 
 Close to its borders are the embryo cities of Lawrence. 
 Etchburg, and Nashua. Even Assabet, too, gives promise of a 
 future ci^, near the spot we occupy; while Boston, the popu¬ 
 lous and wealthy capital of New England, touches the soutli- 
 eastern angle of the county. 
 
 'With such markets and facilities for communication, wlih-'h 
 nearly equal those of the most prosperous districts of Europe.' 
 and are surpiassed by none in America, what are the agrienl 
 turalproducts of Middlesex, and how far are they capable of 
 expansion 1 
 
 Their aggregate amount, by the census of 1845, is but tw; 
 minions three hundred thousand dollars, an amount large 11 
 itself, and yet but one tenth of the produce of its manufacture.'. 
 And may we not safely infer from this disparity, if from no 
 other obvious facts, that the agricultm-al resources of the couu 
 ty are not yet frilly developed ; and that when developed, the 
 markets of the county will requu-e a vast amount of product.' 
 
 * Prices in markets of Boston, Me 
 in American currency: — 
 
 Boston, OaolcT 16. 
 Beef, per pound, 6 to 15 
 Mutton, “ 8 to 14 
 
 Fresh Bntter, “ 13 to 28 
 
 Fowls, per pair, 75 to 125 
 Turkeys, each, 110 to 125 
 Potatoes, per bsl., 70 to SO 
 Old Hay, for 100 lbs. 
 
 New do. “ 75 to 85 
 
 Salmon, per pound. 
 
 Eggs, per dozen, 17 to 18 
 
 Liverpool, Sept. 11. 
 12 to 16 cents 
 12 to 15 
 23 to 30 
 72 to 84 
 108 
 
 48 to 56 
 So to 100 
 70 to 85 
 20 to 24 
 14 to 16 
 
 for GO 
 
IT 
 
 not raised Trltliin its limits, and furnish an overplus of clothing 
 and other manufactures, which may with advantage ho applied 
 to their purchase. 
 
 If we scan the agricultural returns of Middlesex for the year 
 1845, we find its stock as follows: — 
 
 34,728 head of cattle, or 43 to the square mile. 
 
 9,776 “ horses, or 12 “ “ 
 
 4,428 “ sheep, or 6 “ “ 
 
 Let ns contrast these returns with those from England and 
 Wales. 
 
 This higldy cultivated country exhibits, in an area of less 
 than sixty thousand square miles, 
 
 4,000,000 cattle, or 67 to the square mile. 
 
 1,500,000 horses, or 25 “ “ 
 
 26,000,000 sheep, or 460 “ “ 
 
 If we reduce these to one standard, it must he apparent that 
 Middlesex, with all her improvements, does not sustain one half 
 the amount of stock to the square mile, which is reared by 
 England and Wales. 
 
 While we concede to England and Wales some superiority 
 
 in soil over Middlesex, we must not forget there are barren 
 
 mountains both m Wales and the northern districts of England, 
 that a vast extent is there devoted to wheat and barley, to pre¬ 
 serves for game and ornamental parks, and may we not, then, 
 safely infer that om- county is competent, under improved hus¬ 
 bandry, to double or treble its stock of animals ? 
 
 What are the cereal and vegetable products of Middlesex ? 
 The census of 1845 apprizes us, that Middlesex produces in 
 round numbers, 
 
 427,000 bushels of corn and grain, worth 
 
 §264,000 
 
 2,174,000 “ of esculent vegetables and fi-ui 
 
 t, 554,000 
 
 78,000 tons of hay, . 
 
 777,000 
 
 Milk, valued at 
 
 15-3,000 
 
 Butter, “ . , . 
 
 163,000 
 
 Amount carried over, 
 
 §1,911,000 
 
18 
 
 Amount brought over, §1,911,000 
 
 Cheese, eggs, poultry, honey, berries, &c., . 34,000 
 
 Stock sold, estimated as in England at one fourth of 
 
 the whole, . . . 216,000 
 
 Wood and charcoal, products of forests, . 187,000 
 
 §2,348,000 
 
 May we not anticipate, from improved husbandry, the in¬ 
 crease of cattle and consequent growth of manures, a large 
 increase in the amount of some of these productions ? 
 
 The tables to which I have adverted, gleaned with much 
 care from the census of 1845, are fraught with interest to the 
 farmer of IGddlesex. Let us glance at some of the vai’ied les¬ 
 sons which they teach him. 
 
 First. That the principal products of his industry, vegetables, 
 fruit, hay, milk, and fuel, or nearly three fourths of the whole, 
 are of such perishable or bulky character as not to admit of easy 
 transportation to his market towns from the remote interior. 
 
 BSs close vicinity to the market enables him to supply it with 
 the least cost, to avail of the Mghest prices, and to carry back 
 to his frrm a return load of enriching substances, while the 
 fiirmer of the remote interior would find his profits in a great 
 measure absorbed in the cost of compressing of hay, the deteri¬ 
 oration of milk and vegetables, and the increased e.vpenses of 
 conveying aU to market. This advantage adds to the value of 
 a Middlesex farm, and holds out to the Jliddlesex farmer a 
 strong incentive to exertion. 
 
 Second. These tables teach us that nature has peculiarly 
 adapted Middlesex for those bulky products which are most 
 appropriate for its position. 
 
 While it is prolific in fruits, roots, fuel, grass, and milk, its 
 supplies of grain, com, pork, wool, butter and cheese, which 
 admit of transportation from a distance, for the product of acres 
 may be compressed into a single car, are moderate in the ex¬ 
 treme. Middlesex plies at least 400,000 spindles. She raises 
 not one pound of cotton. Her 4,428 sheep would not supply 
 
19 
 
 her spindles with wool for a day, nor furnish her population with 
 one annual dinner of lamb and another of mutton. Her sheep, 
 too, are annually diminishing, giving place to milch cows and 
 cultivauon, and she must depend on the interior for both wool 
 and mutton, both indispensable to her comfort and prosperity. 
 
 Third. With respect to breadstuffs, Middlesex produces 
 annually but 427,000 bushels of wheat, corn, rye, oats, barley, 
 and buckwheat, not one third enough to supply her own popu¬ 
 lation, to say nothing of her adjacent markets. Her whole 
 annual production will barely suffice to give each Iwrse in the 
 county half a peck of corn per day for his sustenance, and no 
 generous or judicious farmer can think of allowing less. The 
 annual wheat crop of Middlesex, but 1,952 bushels, woidd pro¬ 
 vide but one treat of dough-nuts for the good people of the 
 county, and all the pork we can afford to raise will scarcely 
 suffice to fry them and dress those fresh codfish, mackerel and 
 halibut, which Providence has placed around our shores, but 
 denied to the prolific regions of the West. 
 
 For pork and breadstuffs, and I may add for butter and 
 cheese, as the railroads are converting all Middlesex into a milk- 
 farm, the county is dependent on the remote interior. 
 
 Let us glance for a moment at a single county of the West, 
 about two thirds the size of Middlesex. The county of Genesee, 
 N. T., by the census of 1840, exhibits 1,940,000 bushels grain 
 and corn, 154,000 sheep, and 49,000 swine. As a Middlesex 
 farmer, I see nothing to regret in this excess, or to tempt me 
 to exchange my acres in Middlesex for as many or more in 
 Genesee. Nature has bestowed different blessings on different 
 sections of the Union. If at the West she has placed her 
 layers of limestone beneath a fertile soil, and adapted it to 
 wheat and corn, or spread her beech-nut forests over the hills 
 to furnish mast for the swine, and created pastures congenial to 
 the sheep, she has placed us near the ocean, the great highway 
 of nations; she has shaped out ports and harbors for commerce; 
 rivers to impel spindles ; has clad om- rocky hills with forests 
 suitable for timber or fuel; and if she has planted boulders in 
 
20 
 
 our fields, a market exists for them in the wells, cellars and 
 walls of onr growing towns and cities; she has given us land, 
 which enlightened industry will adapt to our position, and en¬ 
 dued us, I trust, with sufficient energy to make it available. 
 
 Withm the last twenty years, agriculture has made great 
 advances in Middlesex; meadows have been reclaimed ; drains 
 have been opened; beautiful orchards have been planted; 
 tasteful cottages, improved houses and bams been construct¬ 
 ed ; the races of animals have been improved; the sources of 
 fertility have been guarded; land more highly cultivated; and 
 the Society I have the honor to address, has, no doubt, con¬ 
 tributed to the progress of agriculture. 
 
 But why should not further and more rapid progress be made, 
 and why should not Middlesex present as bright an aspect as 
 the most productive counties of England ? "Why should we not 
 become the pattern county in agriculture as well as manufac¬ 
 tures? We have markets for our produce nearly if not quite 
 equal to those of England. The price of hay, straw, mUk and 
 vegetables here, is quite as high as the average prices of Eng¬ 
 land. In Indian com with its masses of fodder, which will not 
 ripen m England, we have decided advantages. In the apple, 
 congenial to our soil, but which does not attain perfection in 
 England, we are also before her. 
 
 In addition to all this, every frugal and indusfrious man may 
 here own his farm in fee, is free from the burthen of feudal 
 tenures, from oppressive taxes and poor-rates, and may worship 
 God, educate his children, and vote according to Ms conscience, 
 a privilege not always accorded to the English tenant. 
 
 If our land be less fertile than the soil of Illinois or Wiscon¬ 
 sin, the crop is not absorbed in the cost of fransporting to mar¬ 
 ket, and we have no occasion to dread the fever and ague. If 
 our climate is harsh, the wind from the ocean invigorates and 
 ammates onr frames, and onr wives are not saddened in the 
 rude cabin of the lone prmrie by the remembrance of an early 
 home. Here we have intelligence, science, capital, and the 
 arts of life. Aroxmd us are schools and seminaries of learning 
 
21 
 
 for oiu- cliildrcn, and in our midst is that venerable institution, 
 Harvard University, the mother of piety and learning, nour¬ 
 ished by the beneficence of the honored dead. 
 
 And hliddlesex, too, has one living son, udio defers not his 
 munificence until wealth loses its value, until the caudle of life 
 flickers in its socket; who, amid a career of usefulness and 
 honor, which has signally advanced the great interests of the 
 county, devotes a fortune to the advancement of the arts. Mid- 
 dlese.x will alike appreciate and enjoy the noble donation of 
 Lawrence to found a school for the practical sciences, to create 
 engineers, miners, machinists, and scientific farmers; “ to form 
 ingenious heads, that shall guide the hard hands ever ready to 
 toil on her hard materials.” 
 
 But, while the farmer of Middlesex enjoys these advantages 
 and incentives to exertion, does not much still remain for Iiim 
 to accomplish ? Do we not oceasionally sec half-tilled fields 
 where the plough has barely skimmed over the surface, and 
 little or no aid has been given to natui’e ? Does not the waving 
 grain, by its light and unfilled heads, sometimes Indicate the 
 deficiencies of the sower ? Do not some mowing-fields, brown 
 with their unprofitable herbage and checpiered with white weed, 
 moui-n the absence of plaster, compost, or ashes. And when 
 we reflect that a single acre of enriched pasture is competent 
 to maintain a cow, is not our sympathy often excited for that 
 useful and most respectable animal, as well as for her neglect¬ 
 ful owner, when we see her thi-eading her weary way through 
 barren acres, where not a single blossom of white clover per¬ 
 fumes the am, now roving through alder swamps, now climbing 
 hills covered with birches or brambles, at times lost amongst 
 the thicket, and recognized only by the tinkling bell ? 
 
 Again, let me ask, is not the county studded with deep 
 meadows and swamps, where the leaves and decaying vegetables 
 of the country, swept down from the hills and plains by rain, 
 have accumulated for centuries, where the sounding-rod discov- 
 ere the trunks of trees at the depth of twenty or thirty feet be¬ 
 low the sm-face; are not the.se mines of vegetable mould for 
 
22 
 
 enriclimg tte upland ? may they not be converted into luxu¬ 
 riant grass-fields and pastures, almost insensible to drought, 
 and enduring in their fertility? 
 
 Are there not rocky hills, -which have been -wastefully denud¬ 
 ed of -wood, unfit for cultivation, where the forest should again be 
 tempted to rise, since it flourishes among ledges and rocks, 
 twining its roots around them, and dra-wing potash from the de¬ 
 composing granite ? Would not such transition fi-om a waste 
 of rocks to wood-crowned eminences embellish the county as well 
 as provide timber and fuel ? 
 
 Is not the importance of this apparent, when we consider the 
 inducements offered by groves for'country seats, and remember 
 the high prices of ship-timber during a season in which a single 
 white oak of Middlesex has produced one hundred dollars for 
 timber ? 2ieither must we forget that the locomotives which 
 win traverse the county when the raih-oads which are now char¬ 
 tered are finished, -will require the annual produce of at least 
 forty thousand acres of forest. 
 
 May not our nurseries and orchards be extended, and new 
 varieties of fimit be introduced, and all our lands be more high¬ 
 ly cultivated, with increased profit to the husbandman ? 
 
 Are not the sewers and drains of our towns often suffered to 
 run to waste, when thousands of acres might be fertilized by 
 their contents, and are not huntbeds of tons of oil cake, bones, 
 and ashes, annually shipped from the county to enrich distant 
 shores, which could be used profitably at home ? These are 
 questions which demand the consideration of the hbddlesex 
 farmer. 
 
 If he can solve these problems aright, if he can justly appre¬ 
 ciate and avail of his position, if he wlU endeavor to improve it 
 instead of complaining of the competition of those who can best 
 furnish what he cannot well supply, if he possesses that gene¬ 
 rous spirit which delights to see others prosper while he pros¬ 
 per himself, a Middlesex farm offers a suitable field for his 
 exertions. 
 
 Does he mm at a life useful and beneficial to his race, let him 
 
23 
 
 remember that every acre that he reclaims, every blade of grass 
 that he bids to grow where none grew before, ameliorates the 
 condition of his fellows. 
 
 Does he aspu-o to wealth, let him roSect that his gains, if less 
 brilliant and striking than those of trade and the professions, 
 are more ccrtam and uniform; and that the gradual improve¬ 
 ment of his estate, and the silent but continued rise in the value 
 of property promise eventual prosperity. 
 
 Is he tasteful, he wUl here find a theatre for taste in woods, 
 orchauls, and flowers, and the design of his buildings. 
 
 Is ho ambitious, here are obstacles to be surmounted, subjects 
 to be controlled, races to be improved; a kingdom m minia¬ 
 ture, to be governed by wise and wholesome regulations. 
 
 Is there anything warlike in his composition, let him bury 
 his steel m the boulders, and shatter the rocks that deform his 
 grounds, with gunpowder. 
 
 AYould he make conquests and achieve victories, here weeds 
 and water are enemies; here uncultivated plains are his Me.v- 
 ico, and deep fens and morasses his To.xas and California, 
 and no philanthropist or casuist will complain of his conquests 
 should he subdue them. Let him guard against the ambush of 
 the crow, the wii-e-worm, the squirrel, and the fox, and repel 
 the invasion of the blight, the white-weed, and the sorrel; — 
 he shall see Ins battle-fields not stained with blood, but blossom¬ 
 ing with clover ; and when, in his green old age, he points out 
 to his children his Palo Alto, Buena Vista, Corro Gordo and 
 Cherubusco, and recounts his bloodless achievements, he shall 
 feel greater satisfaction than if his victories had been saddened 
 by the sacrifices and tears of thousands.