652 State Board of Agriculture, &c. 



Less than one-third of the towns reported a few years 

 ago, to the Secretaty of State, over 500 available water 

 powers. 



2. The small percentage of available water power devel- 

 oped and in actual use. There are a score or more of 

 localities at which there is sutticient water power to establish 

 centers of wealth equal to some of Massachusetts' manufac- 

 turing districts, running entirely to waste. By the side of 

 one of the great thorouglifares of travel are a whole series 

 of water privileges which would yield in some localities a 

 working force of 10,000 men, in others 15, 20 and 25,000 

 men. These have been waiting for hundreds of years, and 

 are waiting still, to be pressed into the service of man. 

 What they might add to the population and wealth of the 

 State, through the proper application of capital and enter- 

 prise, can only be estimated by thousands and millions. 

 Along our railway lines are magnificent water powers, 

 sufficient to move the combined machinery of Manchester, 

 N. H., applied to turning only the wheels of one poor 

 lonely paper mill. In addition to all these unoccupied, in 

 many places in which the powers are reported as occupied, 

 less than 33 per cent, of the available power is made use of. 

 Many mills are operated by leaky dams and by ancient 

 water wheels which belong to another age than ours. Lakes 

 and ponds which ought to be nature's great storage basins 

 of water, are but half appropriated or not appropriated at 

 all. 



In addition to these general characteristics of Vermont's 

 water powers, it might be observed, as an important consi- 

 deration, that wood, timber, marble, slate and granite are 



