9^ AGRICULTURE OF MAINE. 



Speaking, manufacturing centers the reverse, since the consum- 

 ing population of mechanical products is of a somewhat stable 

 quality, while the manufacturing area is rapidly increasing. It 

 is a favorable time for a new birth in agricultural New England. 

 It is a more auspicious time than at any period heretofore for 

 enlarged investment of capital, higher and better prices, and an 

 extensively enlarged tillage. 



Before presenting the fundamental essentials of successful 

 farming, I invite attention to the fact that New England has 

 an opportunity for the most successful agriculture of the Nation. 

 Here we have the best markets of the world because they have 

 the largest purchasing power of any markets of the world; 

 because the purchase price of plant food for the growth of a 

 carload of corn or other farm products is less than the trans- 

 portation cost of a similar carload of products from the West. 

 I believe, too, under conditions now clearly arising, that the 

 income of the New England farmer at his best will equal or 

 cx'ceed the income of the average industrialist. 



We are apt to underrate some of the manifest advantages of 

 farming. We are accustomed to the score card in determining 

 the merits of corn for seed, of cattle, horses, and dairy prod- 

 ucts. We may score industries and ascertain which are nearest 

 to one hundred. The vital statistics of Massachusetts show 

 that the farmer lives about fifteen yea^s longer than the average 

 industrialist. We know that his income and a competency are 

 assured. He is the most independent of the industrialists : that 

 IS, he is a self-directive man, has the privilege of doing his own 

 thinking and evolving his own plans, and receives that growth, 

 breadth and strength of character that come only to men who 

 have to take the initiative and meet exigencies, and must rely 

 on their own mental resources. In the town there are a few 

 leaders, while the mass of men have their thinking in business 

 life done for them. They are a spoke in the wheel, a dependent 

 part of an industrial system, directed here and there as a horse 

 or an ox might be directed, and never can attain that resolute 

 self-dependence and personal growth as can the man who owns 

 his farm in fee simple. Socially the farmer expands along the 

 fine of natural tastes uncompelled by a conventionalism that 

 compresses all social factors into one smooth groove ; which 

 cuts out .spontaneity while he is a slave to a conventional sys- 

 tem. His industry, as it is now developing, is unquestionably 



