IIQ SAGADAHOC COUNTY SOCIETY. 



other leading branches of business, and say there is none so sure 

 of placing those who follow it above the reach of want, and leaving 

 the mind so much at rest, free from that care which haunts our 

 daily steps, and that anxiety which corrodes the life. I know that 

 the farmer has his cares and occasionally his troubles also. Some 

 seasons are too wet and cold, and vegetation is backward. Some 

 are too dry and the crops do not reach an average. Sometimes an 

 early frost may cut short the corn and the weevil the wheat. But 

 on the whole there are few drawbacks that the farmer, devoted to 

 his business, cannot, in some way, provide against. The surplus 

 of the years of plenty will always make up for the years of defi- 

 ciency. But he is never overtaken by such great and overwhelming 

 disaster — such stagnant gloom as often settle down upon mercan- 

 tile and commercial communities, reaching and paralyzing all the 

 veins and arteries of trade. It is true these periods of suspended 

 trade make dull markets for farmers and in other ways affect him, 

 though in a secondary degree, yet but lightly in comparison with 

 others. They do not touch his bread, his own granaries supply 

 that, and kind nature continues to work for him in the field, the 

 orchard, the garden and woodland, hour by hour, day by day and 

 month by month, until his crops are ripened for the harvesters. 

 She never tires or falters, but toils on through darkness and storm, 

 by sunshine and starlight, preparing God's bounteous gifts to man, 

 notwithstanding the marts of trade may be silent and sad, and the 

 sails of commerce flap lazily on the ever restless sea. 



To show the comparative security of those who cultivate the soil 

 against the dangers and misfortunes which constantly hang upon 

 the steps of those engaged in commercial, manufacturing, mercan- 

 tile, mechanical and speculative pursuits, let me state the number 

 of failures, so far as they were ascertained, which recently occurred 

 within the United States in a single year. The mercantile agency 

 has its head quarters in the city of New York, with branches and 

 agencies in all sections of the country. Its business is to collect 

 information, for its members, concerning the character and pecu- 

 niary standing of business men in all parts of the country, and to 

 report the number of failures. In their report for the year 185T, 

 the last which I have examined, the number of failures i-eported as 

 having taken place for that single year in the United States were 

 4,927, and the liabilities of the same $291,450,000. Of these near- 

 ly 5,000 failures, 82 are reported for Maine whose liabilities amount 

 to $1,000,000. It is not probable that over fifty cents on the dollar 



