"O AGRICULTURE OF MAINE. 



RESPONSE, 

 By A. ^^'. GiLMAN, Commissioner of Agriculture. 



Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: 



These warm words of welcome that have greeted us are 

 profitable and bring us nearer together, and make better friejids 

 of us, and make us feel that we are one common family. The 

 Maine Dairymen's Association accepts gratefully this kind hos- 

 pitality that has been extended to it. This organization has 

 done a whole lot of good things for this State, and a lot of good 

 things for ourselves. It is a characteristic of this society to 

 make this — their annual meeting — one of great profit to the 

 State, and that each annual meeting shall outvie the past. We 

 have been animated by one single purpose, to make this organ- 

 ization strong, and to make it strong for the simple purpose of 

 building up a great industry here in the State, and that is, a 

 profitable dairy business. Our efforts are being crowned with 

 success. All honor is due those men who conceived the idea 

 and laid the foundation for this organization. They had minds 

 and hearts to look into the future of this State and to conceive 

 what might be done in the organization of a society that should 

 instruct and spread knowledge among men who kept cows, tilled 

 farms and raised crops. And from that time there has been a 

 steady growth in the dairy industry of Maine. 



It was by the earnest and united request of this organization 

 that the State in 1903 appointed a State Dairy Instructor whose 

 duty it should be to instruct, protect and develop this great 

 industry. 



We have been advancing all the time. \Y& have been getting 

 better cows, better farms, better buildings, and our homes are 

 becoming more cultured, more refined, more convenient and 

 more attractive. At the same time the process of education has 

 been such that the farmers of this State have been taught to 

 think, and to like to think, and to think to a definite purpose. 

 The farmer has learned that in order to succeed in dairying he 

 must exercise keen judgment and adopt business methods. In 

 no other of our farm industries are the returns so prompt and 

 so sure as those which the dairv oflFers. A business so indis- 



