340 BOARD OP AGRICULTURE. 



must needs to go to pay freights, commissions and greeds of mid- 

 dle-men, leaving- only a small fraction to the producer, but a home 

 demand — from full feeding artizans — a call followed up by a tender 

 of the products of a day's industiy in the shop or the factory for 

 the products of a day's labor on the farm. It is to Home markets — 

 to meeting the demands of other home industries — both supplying 

 mutual wants, that the farmers of Maine must look for temporal 

 prosperity. In this way alone can we reap the full benefits of 

 division of labor where each works to advantage, at the pursuit 

 which he best understands, is best fitted for, loves best, and is 

 most successful in. 



Let us never forget that increase of consumers creates demand, 

 that increase of production beyond demand reduces the prices of 

 products. Who among traders or mechanics desires an increase 

 in the number of his competitors in the same business? Not one. 

 Why should farmers desire it? 



It is matter for hearty congratulation that this pressing need of 

 agriculture has come to be generally recognized among us, and 

 that efforts are not wanting to create Home Markets. The " dog 

 in the manger" policy which prevailed in this State a generation 

 ago, when the cold shoulder was given to those who were then 

 willing and anxious to come in, and bring capital, and develop our 

 natural rerources, has goue by, let us hope forever. Our prede- 

 cessors seemed to be afraid of capital, looking upon it as a 

 monstrous engine by which they might be reduced to vassalage. 

 They little realized that capital is simply the accumulated fruit of 

 labor, or perhaps more properly labor preserved, labor concen- 

 trated, packed up or salted down and put in a form in which it 

 can be kept and moved from place to place and used where the 

 needful amount of fresh labor could not be had. It bears some 

 analogy to the hay which you store up in your barns to use when 

 and where green, undried grass cannot be had. We now see that 

 if capitalists will come among us for the purpose of making their 

 money grow and yield satisfactory returns for themselves, the same 

 money must be productive for our uses, as well as for theirs. 

 Capital cannot be utilized and made productive without additional 

 labor — fresh labor — and this labor we furnish and reap the benefits 

 of. If our noble water powers are to be harnessed and put to 

 service, more stone must be quarried, more brick must be made 

 and burnt, more buildings for working in, more for storage, more 

 to live in and more to trade in, must be erected. More mechanics 



