Il6 AGRICULTURE OF MAINE. 



ADDRESS OF WELCOME. 



By Dr. C. C. Hall, Dover. 



Gentlemen of the Alaine Dairymen's Association and Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture : It gives me a sense of personal pleasure 

 to be able to stand here this morning, in response to an invita- 

 tion to act as the spokesman of the people of these twin towns of 

 Dover and Foxcroft, and in their behalf to extend to you a cor- 

 dial welcome. We are not all of your profession ; it would not 

 be wise for all of us to join in the same business, for then there 

 would be no market nor would there be competition to stimulate 

 enterprise. It is necessary and wise that our ills should be 

 treated, that we should be warned as to the causes of disease, 

 that the laws should be construed to us, that the many and vari- 

 ous manufactures should be encouraged, and that our multitude 

 of wants should be abundantly supplied. It is necessary that we 

 should build railroads to carry us and our products ; it is neces- 

 sary to have a merchant marine and it is necessary to have an 

 army and a navy. But these things could not exist without 

 agriculture and dairying. On the other hand, agriculture and 

 dairying might exist and flourish on a limited scale without any 

 of these things. Whoever knew a great country without an 

 agriculture of its own ? In time of peace a manufacturing or a 

 mining countrv can flourish, but it cannot stand a blockade. 

 Its accumulated food would soon be exhausted, and its people, 

 however proud, must fall. Our own Alaska, abundantly sup- 

 plied as it is with mineral, with coal, with timber and with water 

 power, would rapidly develop into a rich and flourishing new- 

 municipality did it possess the resources of agriculture and 

 dairying. We have in our community many first class farmers 

 and dair}'men, whose products are among the best. We wel- 

 come you among us, hoping that we may benefit you and that 

 you may benefit us by showing us your improved methods and 

 products, and your improved machinery, and thus teaching us 

 how to produce on a better and broader scale. Dairymen are 

 furnishing us at the present time with very palatable products; 

 but there is one thing to which I wish to call your attention, not 

 in the spirit of criticism but simply as a suggestion to the Maine 



