It is among the proofs of the increasing material prosperity of this country, that the average size of farms has decreased from 199 acres in 1860 to 134 acres in 1880; and that the amount of capital invested in farms exceeds the money invested in railroads, and in manufacturing, including supplies, by over $2,000,000,000. Gradually this vast preponderance of wealth is being more equably distributed among the people. The plantation system, previous to the war, gives way to the small farm, tilled and owned in many cases by the former slaves. Take a single case. Liberty County, Georgia, in 1860, was mostly taken up by large plantations. There were but 48 farms, “of from three acres to one hundred acres each.” In 1880 the county was almost entirely owned by colored people, and there were 1,500 farms. This is an illustration of the yielding of landed monopoly and aristocracy to popular ownership in the soil, and to a more general and evenly diffused prosperity. The average size of farms in fifteen slave States has been reduced from over 368 acres in 1860 to a trifle over 149 acres in 1880, over 50 per cent. If you precipitate upon the population of a country 1,000,000 citizens, who may become land-holders, you have struck a heavy blow at landed monopoly, and taken a long stride toward increase of material prosperity. Let me give you two or three further facts. In 1878 the freedmen of Prince Edward County, Virginia, owned 2,305 acres of land, an increase in eight years of 1,847 acres. In the county of Rockbridge, Virginia, two thousand blacks were assessed for $50,000 worth of real estate. In 1876 the colored people of Georgia owned land valued at $1,234,104, and other property to swell the total to $6,134,829. In the single State of Georgia these people, from not owning a dollar, have come to possess property greater in value than the entire sum spent by this Association in 21 years. Who says that this alabaster box of ointment has been wasted? Material prosperity indicates a certain degree of intelligence. The ignorant are not the wealthy nations of the globe. The work of this Association in bringing these people up to a degree of intelligence somewhat commensurate with their opportunities, and in lifting them to a level of citizenship co-ordinate with the welfare and prosperity of the State, has directly aided in this increase of the material forces of the nation’s welfare. For if the actual amount of property were not increased, yet the prospective wealth of the nation must be by converting 6,000,000 illiterate paupers into educated, independent property-holders. I find this in the last issue of the _American Missionary_, which supports my position with high authority: “It has been estimated at Washington that the annual profit to the country by the conversion of illiterate into educated labor cannot be less than $400,000,000.” This work has been done by this Association.