MAINE STATE SOCIETY. 31 



dated in all our homes. So long as milk, butter and' cheese remain, 

 among the indispensable luxuries of our tables, so long will the art 

 and skill of the dairy be counted as among the noblest accomplish- 

 ments of our house-keeperSj our mothers, and sisters, and daughters, 

 and so long -will the dairy be a source of profit to the owners of the 

 soil. I am not sure that the dairy, on some of our farms, is not one 

 of the primary and most profitable fountains of support and income. 



Another side-department in farming, is that of the fowls. Eggs 

 and poultry are the results of gathering up the fragments, that noth- 

 ing be lost, about the barns and in the fields. Turkeys and hens 

 are gleaners on the farmer's domain, and save to him innumerable 

 scattered grains and random morsels, turning them to a good account. 

 I have no definite report at hand by which to make a statement of 

 the amount of money received annually in this State from this depart- 

 ment in husbandry, but I remember that it is astonishingly large. 

 I think I have seen it estimated that it is more than suflicient to pay 

 for all the flour brought to us from the West. 



Still another side- department in farming may ?oon be introduced 

 in Maine. I mean that of stocking our lakes and streams with fish. 

 It has been proved by experiments that this work may be done on 

 any of our farms bordering lakes and ponds, or on any watered by 

 cool and unfailing streams or brooks. Certainly, the advantages 

 for this employment in Maine, are very great. And what can be 

 more interesting to the farmer than the developments he may induce, 

 the forms of wealth aud beauty he may set in motion, in the clear 

 depths of the pond, or the brook, which is every day under his eye? 

 If he can by an easy art, fill his pond or brook with trout, and thus 

 supply but his own family with one of the most excellent of the arti- 

 cles of diet, he ought to try it. Every farmer having the favorable 

 chances for engaging in it, may often catch the hours, from those 

 which come for repose or amusement, in which to both please and 

 improve himself in this work. In this way, he may add a new fea- 

 ture to the other charming ones of agricultural or pastoral life, and 

 thus make it still more agreeable to the minds of both the old and the 

 young. An eifort in this direction would be much better than to 

 ignore all forms of pleasure, or to frown upon the boys because they 

 prefer fishing to shelling corn on rainy days. 



There is another thing worthy of the former's thought, though it may 



