SECRETARY'S REPORT. 39 



under contribution — personal effort is plentiful and earnest. They 

 do not fold their hands and wait for immigrants to come, but push 

 outwards in every direction. A few weeks since, I received a note 

 from an agent of the Illinois Central Railroad Company, inquiring 

 the time and place of holding the county agricultural exhibitions in 

 Maine. He did not state his object, but who doubts that he intended 

 to avail himself of every gathering, to advertise the lands held by 

 this company, to distribute broadcast among our citizens, pamphlets 

 setting forth golden prospects to emigrants. Who that attended the 

 late State Fair at Bangor, could have failed to observe the huge 

 boxes, filled with pamphlets, for gratuitous distribution, piled up 

 near the entrance to the grounds, or to have one of them offered 

 liim '] Through tickets are provided, and for sale at every depot, 

 and the walls of each, placarded by showy hand bills. All this, and 

 more is done, not only here, but abroad. Documents are scattered 

 with unsparing hand, in every hamlet in Europe ; arrangements are 

 made with emigrant lines, and every man, woman and child, who 

 can raise the passage money, is taken by the hand and ticketed 

 through. 



It is hoped and believed that the time is not far distant, when 

 regular lines of passenger ships will ply to and from one or more of 

 our spacious and unequalled harbors and Europe. Is it both inex- 

 pedient and impolitic for us to avail ourselves of agencies which 

 have proved so signally successful ? Should the claims of our soil 

 to consideration be utterly ignored, go by default, for lack of simply 

 and honestly making known what they are ? 



"As land is the great capital of our State, it is evident that it is 

 population alone that can stamp a value upon it, and lay the founda- 

 tion for agricultural improvement. It is population also that will 

 develop our dormant resources, and give us rank and power in the 

 Federal Union."* 



The remark was made at the outset, that one of the noticeable 

 signs of the times was, a partial staying of the tide of emigration from 

 Maine westward, which has prevailed so largely in years past. True, 

 it is suspended in a measure, but the disposition which brought it 

 about remains. As a people, we Yankees have a peculiar propensity 



*Land Agent's Eeport for 1839. 



