SECRETARY'S REPOKT. HI 



tice should contribute all they possibly can, but this should be the 

 reliance, the corner stone, the pivot of all our operations. 



If the objection be urged, that should all our farmers at once 

 adopt the policy proposed, bread would soon be scarce and dear, and 

 bear undue price compared with animal products, the answer is, that 

 "we may safely calculate, that before sucii result ensues, we shall be 

 in condition to grow all the bread we need, and possibly some to sell. 

 By the plan advocated, if faithfully carried out, 'and accompanied 

 •with good management, every farm should increase in its powers of 

 production at least ten or fifteen per cent, every year, and when our 

 fields average upwards of two tons of bay per acre, our corn sixty 

 bushels, our wheat twenty, and our oats sixty bushels per acre, we- 

 may safely sell the excess — cannot this be done? and if not, why 

 not? Greater advances in practical agriculture have been made in 

 individual instances among us, and if it cannot be done usually in 

 Maine, we have yet to learn what the insuperable obstacles are which 

 prevent. Iti Great Britain the average grain crops throughout the 

 kingdom have more than doubled Avithin a comparatively recent 

 period, and though something is due to the importation of bones, 

 guano, oil cake, &c., all this is as nothing compared with the degree 

 of success wliich has arisen from the attention paid to the growth of 

 animals — the care that green crops bear due proportion to grain 

 crops, and both these to the amount of stock fed upon the products 

 of the land. 



There has been for some time a general move in this State in the 

 rio-ht direction — the amount of live stock on Maine fixrms having 

 largely increased of late. The doubtful point in the matter is, 

 •whether the move be not in view of recent prices, and so liable to be 

 abandoned when these fall; rather than in view of ultimate results, 

 •with a determination to depend mainly upon animal products, until 

 we can afford to sell our crops. 



