SECRETARY'S REPORT. 4'1 



the taxes of the State. As other branches of industry become crippled, it 

 must fay a larger proportion still. Does it deserve, at the hands of the State, 

 encouragement or discouragement ? Plainly, by so much as the reliance of 

 the State upon it is increased, so should support and aid be more liberally 

 given ; by so much as the burdens laid upon it are increased, by so much the 

 more should it be encouraged and fostered. 



Agricultural labor is none too attractive or popular. There is need of en- 

 couragement, in order to retain our young men within the State. Farmers' 

 sons have gone out by thousands ; they are making their mark elsewhere ; 

 they are building up other portions of our common country, it is true, but 

 have left us, as a State, poorer and feebler for their departure. 



Imagine, for a moment, what a blow would be given to this great interest, 

 now the sheet-anchor of the State, should the Legislature say, by its deeds, 

 "agriculture is no longer worthy of encouragement; farmers must bring a 

 larger tale of brick than ever before, but we can help them to no straw." 

 Take away a man's faith and hope and you paralyze him. Think too, of its 

 effect upon our reputation abroad and especially its effect upon the rebels at 

 the South. Will they not have good reason to believe us to be terribly crip- 

 pled already, and that a few more desperate struggles will completely subju- 

 gate us. 



But can the State afford it now? Yes. Neither the State nor its inhabit- 

 ants are so near pauperism that they cannot find a dollar to invest when it 

 will bring ten, or a hundred or five hundred, in return. We submit, rather, 

 the State cannot afford to withhold the requisite aid. "There is that with- 

 holdeth more than is meet and it tendeth to poverty." 



Mr. Goodale, for committee on second topic, viz : " Ought the 

 farmers of Maine to modify the character of their efforts in view of 

 the present condition and prospects of the country, and if so, in 

 what direction, and to what extent?" submitted the following 

 report : 



The subject referred to us, we found to be one of such magnitude and im- 

 portance as deserves more careful thought and protracted investigation than 

 we are able at this time to bestow upon it, and, accordingly, an attempt will 

 be made simply to offer a few suggestions, which it is hoped may lead to more 

 satisfactory investigations by the farmers of Maine for themselves. 



To the first question embraced in our subject we answer, without hesitation, 

 yes. Just so surely as varying demand calls for varied supply, and as long as 

 " circumstances alter cases," so certainly should the farmer, or any other man, 

 adapt his efforts to the conditions amid which he is placed. The other and 

 more practical questions are less easily answered, but are worthy of patient 

 and thoughtful study by every farmer. 



The condition and prospects referred to are those of war — a war of great 

 magnitude and of uncertain duration. War and famine, have, in times past, 

 too often gone hand in hand to allow us to forget their frequent connexion, 

 and the awful consequences following a concurrence of both. Though happily 

 for us, the harvests of two years past have been, by the blessing of Providence, 

 so bountiful that we have no practical experience of this sort thus far ; and, 

 indeed, the measure of ability which we are enabled, as a nation, to meet the 

 unusual burdens of war, is, in a very great degree owing to this fact. It is 

 the plentiful return granted to the labors of the husbandman which has, to 

 human view, saved us from failure in the attempt to crush rebellion and from 

 national bankruptcy. 



The unhappy struggle in which we are engaged — a struggle for all which 

 is dear to us as a free people, has called thousands from the producing classes 

 to become consumers. There is need therefore, not only to produce as much 



