352 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



We are not satisfied with that mode of living. Our people are 

 differently constituted. They will have something- better to eat 

 and something better to wear ; and the improvements which we 

 have adopted in the last half century warrant them in so doing. 



Hence, I say, in looking back a term of years, we see that great 

 improvement has been made in our own State, as well as in every 

 part of the country. A good many are inclined to the belief that 

 our farmers are not making much improvement, and are not up 

 to the times. I can see an immense difference in the position of 

 farmers, so far as I am acquainted with them, from what it was 

 fifteen, twenty-five and thirty years ago. They are really a very 

 independent class of people. They manage their farms remark- 

 ably well ; not so well as they might, not so well as they will ; 

 but if you travel through the State, you will see a marked im- 

 provement, which I think has kept pace, if not gone ahead, of 

 any and all other business in the State. I believe that we shall 

 continue to improve ; that we shall arrive at a higher state of 

 independence, and support ourselves and families with more ease 

 and with less loss by mistakes, because we shall be governed more 

 by the thinking power, rather than by chance or by routine. I 

 have full faith in the future of agriculture. 



Mr. H. C. Burleigh, of Fairfield. I have been pleased by the 

 remarks which have been made in regard to the improvements 

 which are going on in machinery and in the modes of culture of 

 our farms. We can all see a marked difference. I think all who 

 have farms of large size can endorse the remark make this even- 

 ing, that since the war, a farm can be carried on with one half the 

 labor that it could before the introduction of recent improvements. 



It has been suggested that our farms are wearing out by the 

 raising of animals and sending them to the large cities. I hardly 

 think we need have any fears on that ground ; but when the 

 farmer raises hay and potatoes and sends them off we have reason 

 to fear. Let every farmer, instead of raising hay and potatoes 

 and corn to sell, put them into neat stock, carefully save every 

 shovelfuU of dressing, and return it to the soil, and it will never 

 run out. You can see to-day, in the Kennebec valley, farms that 

 have been used for stock raising for forty years, and they arc 

 better now than they were at first. But if you go near the rail- 

 roads, wlicre they have been raising hay and potatoes to sell, 

 instead of being consumed on the farm, you will find the condition 

 far otherwise. Let us turn our attention to neat stock, or sheep. 



