SECRETARY'S REPORT. 211 



Prospects and Duties. 



In concluding this Report I desire to offer a word of exhortation 

 to the farmers of Maine. We have fallen upon troublous times ; 

 where, for nearly half a century, almost uninterrupted peace, at 

 home and abroad, has been our lot, for nearly two years past a 

 gigantic rebellion has threatened our national existence. Deadly 

 war is raging between hosts, in numbers unparalleled in modern 

 times. Again and again the call has come to us for men. Nobly 

 and promptly has the call been responded to. Our sons and our 

 brothers have exchanged the harvest field for the battle ground. 

 In place of the plow and the scythe, they handle the musket and 

 the sword. And we who remain, although we share not their per- 

 ils and hardships, have not less weighty responsibilities resting upon 

 us. It is not for me here to speak of our duties as citizens ; God 

 helping us, we will support our Government, uphold the Consti- 

 tution, crush insubordination and lawlessness, and maintain law 

 and order and justice. North and South. 



But oi onv peculiar duties as farmers I may speak. Those thou- 

 sand and more regiments in the field, from being producers have 

 come to be consumers. Every man of them must be fed and clothed 

 — fed and clothed from the productions of the earth. A time of 

 war is usually a time of diminished production ; our experience in 

 this respect, thus far has been exceptional. By the blessing of 

 Providence our harvests have been ample, and famine has not 

 threatened us. Taking the country together, the years 1860, '61 

 and '62, have been very plentiful years, and the help afibrded by 

 these abundant crops, in enabling us to sustain the call for men and 

 means, can scarcely be over estimated. They have had much to 

 do, also, in preventing foreign intervention. The foreign press 

 has been steadily predictmg our failure to produce a sufficiency of 

 food. Europe has been amazed beyond measure, to find us able, 

 not only to feed our own population, (with all the loss and waste 

 incident to great military operations,) but to export bread-to feed 

 her hungry millions. 



How much longer we may be able to do this, is a serious ques- 

 tion. The last call for 600,000 men was responded to, for the most 



