GOVERNOR PEKIIAM'S ADDRESS. 9 



getting back, as soon as possible, the hay crop which was formerly 

 produced. 



The .statistics of this State, gentlemen, as furnished by the 

 census winch was taken in 1870, are also somewhat discouracrinur 

 We see by these that in the rural portions of the State, in the 

 older portions of the State, there has been a decrease, rather than 

 an increase, in the population. It is particularly unfortunate that 

 we have not been able, during the last decade, to increase our 

 population ; but such is the fact. 



It may not be improper for us to consider, briefly, some of the 

 causes which have led to this result. It is very -well understood 

 that the business which you have met to consider, the agriculture 

 of this State, lies at the very foundation of all other business, 

 and at the foundation of the prosperity of the State. No other 

 business can succeed well unless agriculture succeeds. It is, 

 nevertheless, true, that the agricultural interest is, to some extent, 

 dependent upon the other interests of the State. I mean by this, 

 that every professional man, every man who builds a ship, every 

 man who goes out fishing from our coast, every mechanic, every 

 operative in our factories, every man who works upon our granite 

 and in our slate quarries, and in the quarrying and burning of our 

 lime, — every one of them requires what the farmer produces, and 

 the more we have of those interests, the larger number of persons 

 there are employed in those occupations, the greater will be the 

 benefit to the agriculture of the State. We are not able to com- 

 pete in the raising of breadstuff's with the grain-growing States of 

 I West, but there are some things that we can raise, and in 

 which we can compete with any other portion of the country. 

 We can raise potatoes here as well as anywhere, and the potato 

 crop that we export now is one of our largest sources of income, 

 and a very important crop with us. There is another thing we 

 can do. As you establish manufactures, or any industry, it makes 

 no difference what, anywhere in the State, that requires operatives, 

 that requires men and women to carry it on, you have there a 

 market for such of the surplus of the garden and the farm as 

 cannot be brought from abroad. In respect to these products, we 

 have no other part of the world to compete with us. It appears 

 to me, therefore, that in the older farming portions of this 

 State, nothing will tell more favorably upon the agricultural 

 interest of those communities than the establishment of other 

 industries in our midst. Everybody knows that in the immediate 



