gig BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



this direction. Let me give you a simple illustration which came, 

 under my own observation. For twenty-#ve years I resided on_ 

 the line of road leading 1 from the three great manufacturing points 

 on the Saco river to Portland. Before the opening of the York 

 and Cumberland Railroad, the large amounts of lumber manufac- 

 tured at the places was carried to Portland, a distance of sixteen 

 miles, on teams. A large number of the people on the line of the 

 road, and even three and four miles off the line, were engaged in 

 this work ; there seemed to be a deep, almost excited interest 

 with these men to engage in this business ; many of them neg- 

 lected their farms, worked hard, made a comfortable living, but 

 few of them did more, and some less, and in a majority of cases, 

 there was no improvement made in property, and no increase in 

 wealth, as the result of this severe and protracted toil. With the 

 opening of that road, all this passed away ; more attention was 

 given to the hitherto neglected farm, and in a few years there was 

 a marked improvement in their financial affairs. 



During an excursion made to the lower part of our State a few 

 years since, I was painfully impressed by seeing the workings of 

 this system on a more extended scale. Small homesteads had been 

 cleared, but there was no appearance of interest or heart in the 

 work. The owners were employed in lumbering, not as princi- 

 pals, but in the employment of others, and it was painfully evident 

 that no foundation for present or future wealth was being laid. 

 And it must be borne in mind that the cases of individual success 

 in connection with this branch of industry, which have so dazzled 

 the mind of the masses, have been confined to a small number. A 

 very large proportion of the men engaged in this business occupy* 

 subordinate positions, they are simply laborers at so much per 

 day or month. Their is but little opportunity for increase or 

 development. The young man of twenty- five is better able to 

 perform the labor which entitles him to his thirty or forty dol- 

 lars per month, than the man of fifty years ; and if he succeeds in 

 providing a simple home and comfortable support for his family, 

 it is all he can hope for duriug the best years of his life, while in 

 agriculture the young man who takes up a section of new laud, 

 and for ten or twenty years struggles hard to supply the wants o 

 his family, finds a steadily growing compensation, and in many 

 cases a competency in the increased value resulting] from the 

 development of his farm. 



