SAGADAHOC COUNTY SOCIETY. - 109 



returns to the most of those who have engaged in it. But it has 

 had its periods of depression and is now passing through one, of 

 perhaps greater length and severity than was ever before known 

 in a time of peace. In nearly all of our sea-board towns, may be 

 seen the sad faces of shipwrecked men, who, after a great struggle 

 had to bow their heads and fall before this great commercial storm, 

 whilst many who survive are borne up by hope, and anxiously 

 watch the shifting scud in the commercial sky to find some sign 

 that the storm is abating and calm returning. To whatever cause 

 we may attribute the current mercantile disasters, whether to a 

 general overtrading, a too rapid and large accumulation of tonnage 

 for the world's business, or to other causes, we must all unite in 

 the hope of a speedily returned prosperity to our commerce. 



But with all its buoyant hopes, its brilliant allurements, its peri- 

 ods of high success, of stirring excitement, and generally its ap- 

 pearance of enduring strength, it must not be forgotten that its 

 paths are beset with danger, and whoever treads them commences 

 a journey of care and anxiety, which, in a majority of cases, ends 

 in disappointment, and too often in disaster and ruin. 



The improvements in machinery, new discoveries of, and changes 

 in, the commodities of commerce, and its fluctuating ebb and flow — 

 a more universal engagement in manufactures, which must lead to 

 a less transportation of heavy raw material — the eflbrt now making 

 to change, to some extent, the commerce of the sea by the use of 

 steam in ocean navigation, all tend directly to a re-adjustment of 

 the course of trade, and to create material changes in the channels 

 of commerce. Whatever changes may come, I trust our people 

 will show as much facility in meeting and adapting themselves to 

 them as the people of any other State or country. 



The pursuit of agriculture is free from these violent fluctuations 

 and changes, and far more sure to yield to industry a fair reward. 

 If it excites no glowing dreams of anticipated millions, rarely seen 

 but in golden visions ; if its quiet pursuit builds up but few over- 

 grown fortunes, it offers the great consolation that it is not borne 

 up on wrecked hopes, that it leaves none to perish by the way-side, 

 and that all who try may succeed, and gain a fair reward for their 

 industry, more than enough to satisfy all temperate wants, beside 

 that which is above all price, calm peaceful lives, comparatively 

 free from care and anxiety. I do not mean to be understood that 

 a farm is an elysium upon which care and trouble never enter. Far 

 from it. I speak of the pursuit of agriculture in comparison with 



