SECRETARY'S REPORT. 3Y 



■Aese to be nearly equivalent the one to the other. We will also 

 assume tliat each individual of its population, including men, ^Yomen 

 and children, require for sustenance fifteen bushels of wheat, or 

 forty-five bushels of oats, or the equivalent of either in other forms 

 of human food. We have then, here, the means of producing suste- 

 nance for a million of inhabitants ; a number considerably larger 

 than the whole fifteen counties in the State contain at the present 

 time. In this calculation, it is true, no deduction has been made 

 for the necessary fuel, nor for the maintenance of domestic animals, 

 a portion of whose consumption would not be returned in meat, dairy 

 products, or other form of human food ; but after making all due 

 allowance for these or other matters which should properly be sub- 

 tracted, a vast and almost astounding amount of capabilities remain. 



What shall be done to develop them ? This is a question for the 

 legislators of the State charged with care for its best interests, to 

 decide ; and it is one which may well engage your earnest and 

 thoughtful attention. Without intruding any opinion, it may be 

 admissible for me to suggest, that, preliminary to its solution, it 

 would be pertinent to inquire why they have not been developed 

 more rapidly hitherto 7 There they have lain for many years as 

 good as now, and during these years large numbers of our citizens 

 have left us and gone thousands of miles to less healthy climes, and 

 settled down to cultivate no better soil. 



The State has not only been willing all the while, that they should 

 be occupied, but it has been a cherished policy for many years, to 

 aid and encourage their rapid settlement. To the truth of this, the 

 enactments annually made, for years past, aimed at this result, 

 (however small the success which has attended them,) bear ample 

 testimony. So too, and emphatically, does the large purchase of 

 lands made a few years since of Massachusetts, and for which the 

 State credit was pledged, in order that they might be distributed 

 among actual settlers at a merely nominal price. 



What have been the obstacles hitherto? This inquiry was put to 

 the settlers on every fitting occasion, and received a uniform reply — 

 "we lack facilities of communication — we are virtually out of the 

 world — nobody knows of us — nobody cares for us — we are few, and 

 cannot build roads alone. The State is largely owner of the lands, 

 and the roads slie has built are inadequate, besides being ahyays out 



