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bushel. The credit system had been in full operation, until general 

 distrust prevailed throughout the county; and many, very many, of 

 our inhabitants were actually in a suffering condition ; without money, 

 or anything for which money could be obtained ; without credit, com- 

 pelled to work without comfortable habiliments, without spirit, without 

 hope, and often without a healthful allowance of food, which gives 

 physical strength, and with it, ambition and bodily energy and moral 

 courage to endure the laborious work incident to a farmer's life. This 

 is no fancy sketch, or an overwrought picture. It is what many who 

 now hear me, have both seen and experienced. When this association 

 came into existence, the population of the county was scarcely 5,000. 

 At that time, we not only had no market of any value at home, but in 

 consequence of the almost utter impassableness of the public highways, it 

 was the next thing to an impossibility to get to a market abroad ; and 

 frequently one-half, if not more, of an entire crop would be used up in 

 time, money and charges, in converting it into cash. 



But, fellow-citizens, a brighter day has dawned upon us. In the 

 place of a population of 5,000, we now number over 10,000. The 

 number of acres of improved land in the county during the last five 

 years, has more than tripled. Where, in 1850, stood the majestic 

 forest; where might be seen in clusters the sturdy oak, or in more 

 compact body the beach and maple, the hard hack and the lind, may 

 now be seen beautiful meads, pastures, wheat fields, corn lots and other 

 grounds, luxuriant with every variety of grain, plant and root usual to 

 this climate. Where in the area of nearly twenty-four miles square? 

 could only be found less than half a dozen independent farmers, may 

 now be seen hundreds (we were going to say thousands) of as inde- 

 pendent agriculturists as are to be found anywhere between the two 

 oceans. Where, in 1850, the hardy pioneers of the then more recent- 

 ly settled portions of the county, were accustomed to wend their lone 

 way in and out of the woods directed in their course only by blazed 

 trees, or the north star, are now to be found passable roads, and here 

 and there all along by the side, are scattered the dwellings of the merry 

 farmer, proud of his country, proud of his situation, boasting of hie 

 bountiful crops, and rejoicing in the fair prospect of soon becoming 

 rich and being surrounded with the comforts usually enjoyed by the 

 inhabitants of the older counties. 



