^22 ANDROSCOGGIN COtJNTY SOCIETY. 



heavy? — then warm and enliven it, bj those very helps at yotiP 

 command. Or if it is light and sandy, mix in such soil and com- 

 post as are easily to be secured, and you give it strength and dura- 

 bility. You are then ready to bring forward all kinds of early 

 vegetables. 



To this, it may be said, that you have no markets for such pro- 

 ducts, or that the expense of marketing will consume all the profits. 

 But this is a great mistake, for not only have you markets, but yott 

 have such as command the highest prices. In all our cities and 

 manufacturing villages, our mechanics, and traders, and professional 

 men, are stinted for these fruits of the land, or must forego them on 

 account of high prices, v/hile you have acres that produce nothing 

 of value. Those who serve us vnth these common necessaries, pay 

 thousands of dollars to the Boston market, all of which you might 

 retain as an extra income from your land. Men in Massachusetts 

 can afford to supply our markets, and make money by so doing, — ^ 

 why is it that you cannot do as well as they? They own no richer 

 or better land than you, only as they have made it better by culti- 

 vation. The barren sand-hills of Cape Cod, where — since the morn- 

 ing stars of creation sang together for joy — nature, unaided by man, 

 has produced no luxury for the table, are now by human helps ren- 

 dered productive, and every year increasing in productiveness and 

 Value. I now refer to the cranberry crop, one of the most produc- 

 tive and valuable to which jve can turn attention. Not a farmer 

 within the limits of your Society, but who has a small out-of-the- 

 way piece of land, fit for nothing else, and .which, by a few days 

 labor, he might convert to this productive purpose. The strawberry 

 is another fruit, easily cultivated and highly remunerative — an arti- 

 cle of luxury and health for your own table, and for which there is 

 an unlimited sale and waiting markets within reasonable distance. 

 A small patch of land thus appropriated, would not only add. beauty 

 and value to your farm, but give to your pocket a silver lining. 



The painter arranges his pictures, so as to produce the most 

 pleasing and harmonizing effect upon the senses. The merchant 

 displays his goods so as best to attract the eye. This is a work of 

 study, of calculation, and arrangement. And so it should be with 

 the farmer ; he should study, not only to make his land productive, 

 but attractive, both to himself and others. An evergreen hedge 



