164 AGRICULTURE OF MAINE. 



ducing. If I am asked what more is required, my answer would 

 be prompt and to the point, — "Better business methods in the 

 conduct of the farm and strict attention to marketing methods." 

 If the farming population of the State of Maine realized 

 the importance of better business methods, before another 

 month had passed away meetings would be called from one 

 end of the State to the other and the farmers would act as a 

 unit in adopting some method which had proved the salvation 

 of other farming communities. In the past the farmers of 

 this and other countries have stood in the background with 

 hands outstretched asking for government aid. Instead of 

 doing this and waiting for others to act for them, they should 

 have taken the initiative and forced themselves to enter into the 

 busy marts of trade on an equality with the man of the town or 

 city. 



The first thing for the farmer to overcome is his lack of 

 confidence not only in himself but in his fellow farmer. In 

 order to overcome this unfortunate condition he must first con- 

 sider his importance to the country and how far he has entered 

 into the building and maintaining of this great and prosperous 

 Nation. He must remember that it was the farmer army who 

 gained the independence of the Colonies and brought forth 

 upon this continent a new Nation conceived in liberty and 

 dedicated to the proposition that all men are created free and 

 equal. He must remember that at the close of the struggle he 

 became the advance guard at the outposts of civilization where 

 he prepared the way for others to follow. At the breaking out 

 of the war with Mexico, and Indian uprising, to further con- 

 vince the Mother country that America was determined to be 

 free he again appeared in the ranks with his musket, but when 

 peace was declared he again returned to the business of feeding 

 the Nation. For six score and sixteen years he has tilled the 

 soil under a free government right here in the State of Maine 

 and carried on his business in a way that has not brought to 

 him more than 50 per cent of what was rightly his. He has 

 seen the bright boys of the farm go to the city and there become 

 millionaires in some cases, and these boys left the farm for 

 the reason that their fathers could not show them a profit on 

 the farm. 



