260 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



roads who were as utterly incapable of doing that work 

 as a minister would be of fitting a shoe. We have in the 

 State of Maine to contend with party ties and bonds. 

 "Why," men say, "he belongs to our party, and we must 

 turn the other man out, and put him in to make our 

 roads." We elect a man who has been disappointed in 

 getting some political office that he wanted and thought he 

 ought to have, make him highway surveyor, and give him 

 twenty-five dollars a year to spend on the roads. There 

 is the evil. When we put business into road making we 

 are going to have better roads, and the only way to do 

 it is to put a man at the head who understands his 

 business. I was glad to hear Mr. Bowker make the 

 remark that he did in regard to having before us a section 

 of road. I felt, all the time the speaker was giving his 

 admirable address, that, if he had only come with a little 

 section of road in a glass case, it would have helped 

 greatly to an appreciation of good road- work. I believe 

 in object lessons in teaching. That is what we are trying 

 to do in our institute work in our State. We want to 

 have the type of the animal or object before us about 

 which we are talking. If we could have had a section 

 of a well-constructed road and one of a poorly constructed 

 road before us, we would have carried home a better 

 impression of what we want than could possibly be given 

 by any description. 



Now, we do not like and do not emphasize in the State of 

 Maine the idea of depending so much upon the State 

 government, and going there for assistance. We believe in 

 the State fostering its interests and encouraging its inhabi- 

 tants. I tell you, gentlemen, that we shall be better men 

 when we have to depend upon ourselves more. Nothing of 

 value in science or art has ever been obtained without labor, 

 or ever will be. I believe that the policy of looking to the 

 State government for appropriations to do this, to do that, 

 and to do everything, is a bad policy. I like the law of 

 New York, to which Mr. Grinnell referred, that makes it a 

 penal offence for any man to neglect to do certain things, — 

 cut the thistles and wastes, etc. I wish we could get such a 



