GOVERNOR PERHAM'S ADDRESS. ^3 



extended into the vicinity of those quarries, and the business 

 increases to such an extent that we may reasonably expect in the 

 future to reap a very large revenue from it. 



Then, again, when we consider our facilities for manufacturing-, 

 we have no hesitation in saying that there is no State in the Union 

 which has facilities equal to our own. Our water-power is 

 unlimited, and in centuries on centuries, under the most favorable 

 circumstances, we could not be expected to use it all. Some of our 

 rivers have their rise in localities fifteen hundred feet above the 

 sea, making a descent of fifteen hundred feet from the place where 

 they rise to the place where they empty into the ocean, furnishing 

 opportunities for the establishment of factories all along. The 

 average' descent of our rivers from the place where they take their 

 rise in this State is something more than six hundred feet. You 

 see there is a very great fall. 



But we have something more than this. Only about one-third 

 of the area of this State is now cultivated, or included in what 

 are denominated towns. About two-thirds, or a little more than 

 twenty thousand square miles, are to-day in forest. About fifteen 

 thousand square miles of that are in the northern and northeastern 

 portion of the State, where the hand of cultivation has never gone. 

 In those forests fall our heavy and deep snows, which, melting all 

 along from early spring to June and July, furnish a continuous 

 flow of water, even in the dryest seasons of the year, to keep up 

 the flow of those rivers and supply the water-power on their 

 courses. 



We have still other advantages. Most of the rivers, of any 

 considerable importance in this State, take their rise in some large 

 lake or other large reservoir, which serve to retain the waters 

 until they may be needed in the drouths which may occur in the 

 summer. At a small expense, dams can be raised that will keep 

 back all the water that we may need to reserve, so that, in the 

 dryest season of the year, the wheels will continue to run. We 

 have, then, an important advantage in this respect. 



What shall we say of the agricultural advantages of our State ? 

 It is well known that, although they are not equal to those of 

 some other States, yet, in many respects, they will not suffer by 

 comparison with many of the States that have outstripped us in 

 agricultural wealth. In the valley of the Saco, of the Andros- 

 coggin, on the Kennebec and Sandy rivers, and on the Aroostook 

 and St. John, we have some land about as good as can be found 



