PENOBSCOT AND AROOSTOOK UNION SOCIETY. 185 



The answer is plain and simple, no witchcraft or anything super- 

 natural about it. The great, the wise, the learned men, for which 

 France is so renowned (whose attention for twenty years had been 

 engrossed by the arts of war) were now turned to agriculture. 

 Every available means to enrich the soil was resorted to. Manu- 

 factories were established, for the -purpose of converting the bodies 

 of dead animals, the offal of slaughter houses and other unwhole- 

 some and ofiFensive matter into deodorized and highly valuable fer- 

 tilizers. They adopted the system of turning the products of the 

 farm into their most concentrated form. The hay, the grain, and 

 the roots were fed to pork, beef, mutton, poultry, &c., and miich 

 returned to the farm to fertilize it. Agriculture was the pride of 

 the nation. No man was too great or too good to labor. Incred- 

 ible as it may appear, we can do the same if we will. I do not 

 believe there is a single farm, within the limits of this Society or 

 even State, which may not be doubled in value in less than thirty 

 years. Notwithstanding the great improvement in agriculture in 

 France, her's is far behind that of Great Britain. It should be the 

 object of every farmer in this country to raise the agricultural 

 standard, at least as high, as it is in any other. For that purpose, 

 the first and most important step is, to acquire knowledge. How 

 little we know and realize the thousand blessings kind Providence 

 has spread around us. How little we know how to appropriate 

 them to our advantage and comfort. Are we not, in that respect, 

 too much like the Californian Indian, who remains miserably poor, 

 hungry and naked, while roving over the richest mines of gold ? 

 No man should engage in any pursuit without securing the best 

 knowledge of it which he can obtain ; for ignorance of one's own 

 business is almost certain to result in failure. No farmer should 

 be without the best agricultural books and newspapers. But are 

 there not many who do not furnish themselves' with any agricul- 

 tural work whatever ? Do farmers generally read and regard, as 

 they should, the valuable information given the public by the re- 

 ports of the Secretary of our Board of Agriculture ? Do they take 

 and read that excellent journal, the Maine Farmer ? We have 

 eighty thousand farmers in the State, yet only ten thousand copies 

 of that paper are published. Are there not a majority of the farm- 

 ers in this State, aye and in this Society too, who not only take no 

 agricultural work, but no newspaper whatever ? And the excuse 

 they generally give is, they are too poor to take a paper. But I 

 believe no industrious farmer is so poor that he cannot afford to 



