16 GOV. sprague's address. 



when he saw that ahnost the whole population of the country 

 were seeking other avenues of employment, he was curious to 

 understand the reason, if a reason could be found. Trades, 

 commerce, manufactures, mechanics, tempted the whole popula- 

 tion toward them. It had been his duty also to examine into 

 the condition of subjects in which the nation itself was interested, 

 and he found it was impossible for an American ship to compete 

 on the ocean with the ships of any foreign country. These 

 facts impressed upon his mind a conviction that there was some- 

 thing out of order, something w^rong in the condition of our 

 affairs. Then the question arose, what is the difficulty ? He 

 had ascertained that the cost to the farmer for the use of the 

 money he employed in the crops he produced was more than 

 half its value. That cost was found in the prices he paid for 

 his farm, his tools, in the transportation of the crops and in the 

 expense of his buildings. In consequence of the extreme cost 

 of money it was impossible for him to introduce strengthening 

 elements to keep up the value of his land, in order that he might 

 continue its productiveness. In Rhode Island, where hardly a 

 generation since they w^ere able to produce on the farm that he 

 (Mr. Sprague) occupied as much as four or five hundred bush 

 els of potatoes per acre, they could not to-day raise a bushel, 

 owing to the deteriorated condition of the soil. The land which 

 gave subsistence to an energetic and educated population in 

 former years was hardly to-day any better than the desert lands 

 of Sahara. The reason for all this was that the stream of 

 money which heretofore flowed into the hands of the farmer, 

 and enabled him to benefit his land and himself, had departed, 

 and was not likely to return. It had been ascertained that all 

 the employments in which the people were engaged and that 

 required the use of this material, the ones that wanted it longest 

 were the first to be deprived of it. Farming would sink first, 

 as not being able to make quick returns ; commerce next. The 

 encroacher was already visiting manufacturing and the trades, 

 and banking, or dealing in money, Avould be the last. He had 



