218 - BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



thirsting for, but which I hope we shall hold on to, for they are 

 the richest treasures we have to convert into money. I have been 

 over the State a great deal, in seasons not so dry as the present ; 

 and I think we have suffered especially from the drought. One of 

 the gentlemen from the college remarked to me last night that he 

 thouglit the drought had been a little more severe here than be- 

 low, and the grasshoppers have been very voracious. It is a hard 

 time for us to exhibit the agricultural resources of the country ; 

 but in other seasons, I have found the corn as tall, and rich in col- 

 or, and the grain fields as heavy and waving as luxuriantly in Pis- 

 cataquis as in any other locality in the State ; and the potatoes of 

 Piscataquis county are not excelled by those of any other part of 

 the world, and they may be produced in great abundance. 



I say, then, that I will not attempt to add to the picture drawn 

 by the gentleman of the resources of Piscataquis, nor am I going 

 to criticise the rather poverty-stricken view of the matter which 

 brother Chamberlain took, because I knew he presented it in order 

 to obtain the benefit of your suggestions. Do not understand me 

 as being dogmatical in tliis matter, thinking I am going to teach 

 you. I have come here for the sole purpose of being instructed by 

 you. You are welcome to instruct us. We are happy that you 

 have come among \\s, and we shall listen most carefully to your 

 teachings. I merely throw out these ideas, which are not new- 

 fledged opinions, which have seized upon me this morning for the 

 first time ; I have entertained them for years. I see here a gentle- 

 man from the citj- of Brooklj^n. The thought has occurred to me a 

 great many times how much plant-food is wasted in that city, and in 

 New York, and in all the large cities of the earth, most of which 

 might be saved. Let us, who have any desii-e for tlie future wel- 

 fare of the State, look to it that the earth is not impoverished, so 

 that the people shall dwindle in stature, decrease in number, and 

 the race finally become extinct through bad agriculture. There is 

 not a man, woman or child, who has the slightest interest in the 

 prosperitj' of the race, wlio will not feel his or her heart throb at 

 the suggestion of any means by which we shall be enabled to 

 transmit the mother earth on which we were placed to the genera- 

 tion that is to come after us, at least in as good a condition as that 

 in which it was found when we received it. 



You will excuse me ladies and gentlemen. I have spoken 

 much longer than I thought, and I have spoken almost entirely on 



