Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1871-01-30
AGRICTL TURF AND 4MANUFACTUR

AGRICUL TUREAND MANUFACTURES.
In 1869. Hon. George B. Loring de-
livered an address before the New Eng
land Agricultural Society, in which he
demonstrated by facts and figures the i'm
portance to the agricultural interest of
building up manufactures, showing that
they flourish best side by side. Going
over the history of our country in its
earlier days, sketching the progress which
it made under the development of various
industries, he spoke of the recent condi-
ton of New England as affected by the
growth of manufactures, and its future
prospect and duty, as follows:
1t is our home market, which is ofespecial
value to the farmer. When the aggregate
value of all the products of our agriculture
was 1856, 200, 900, our export of these pro-
ducts, exclusive of cotton, was SPAS, 000, 900
only, and of this, breadstutfs bore but small
proportion 1t is not only the consumption of
the staples of food, breadstutfs and provisions,
at the great centers of trade and manufactures
which gives agriculture its strength in this
country. and inspires the grain power and the
cattle feeder of the West with confidence, but
it is also that demand for the products of the
immediate neighborhood, the garden and the
dairy, and the orchard, which makes the hard
est soils bud and blossom. Strike down the
manufactures of New England, and it would
be difficult to tell why agriculture should be
longer continued here. As it is, what vast
energy do you display, and what skill in all
the business of the farm? There are more
oil M nd cnilc
but there are no better cattle to be found than
those which are bred on the banks of the
Kennebec, no better potato crops than are
found on the Penobscot and ArOostook, no
better grain crops than grow in western Mas
sachusetts, no finer tobacco than the Connec-
ticut valley yields, no more perpetual verdure,
even under the tropics, than can be seen
from January to December under the cultiva-
tors glass in the vicinity of Boston, no
heavier grass crops than grow on the thorough
drained clays of Essex county, Massachusetts,
and no better markets for all these products
than are furnished in all our manufacturing
villages. Turn with me for moment to the
State of Massachusetts, for illustration mot
remarkable for the fertility of its soil, small
in area, and with large tracts of land iDcapa-
BILE of cultivation. OF her population, 27l,-
421 are engaged in manufactures and only
1856 in agriculture. And yet she ranks
high as New England Agricultural State
Her horses, oxen and cows are valued at Sl9,-
l54, 100. She produces in hay, Sl3, 1876, PA
in beef Sis, 22S. S59-in pork, "a, us, SOP
in butter, cheese and honey, 81, GG5, 296; and
the average price of her cows exceeds that of
any other New England State. She is pre-
eminently manufacturing State; ranks first
in the production of cotton and woollen goods,
boots and shoes; has bowed before the storm
of manufacturing adversely; and has been
ready at any moment to catch the favoring
gales of prosperity under the influence of her
own policy of protecting domestic industry
Her agriculture languishes, and she crowds
her streams with mills, and then invites her
farmers to feed the thronging population. Its
commerce decays, and its fisheries decline, and
Fall River resounds with the hum of millions
Of spindles. New Bedford turns to manufac-
lures, Salem sheds one tear over the depar-
ture of her gallant East lndamen, and covers
one of her wharvcs with most extensivc'and
prosperous cotton mill, as a commencement
of her manufacturing enterprise; Boston adj
mires from comparatively silent wharves, her
beautiful harbor, and turns towards the west
ern sun to see the princely dwellings of her
manufacturers adorning the stateliest of her
streets, and ornamentng her suburbs with the
rarest taste and beauty. Not for moment
has her prosperity halted, as her enterprise
has turned from her ships to her great manu-
featuring warehouses, and from the sea to the
toiling streams, hurrying through the busy
valleys of that commonwealth, of which she
is proud to be the etropolis-accepting such
commerce as the internal industry of the
State, and its long lines of connection
with the western farms and western markets
may create. Such is Massachusetts,, pro-
tected in her industry by wise policy of
government.
Turn now, citizens of Maine, to your own
State. With an area of 50 900 square miles,
five times as large as Massachusetts, with a
coast Astounding in more good harbors than
any other State III the Union,-with forests
containing a thousand million feet of lumber,
she has devoted herself largely to feeding adj
joining States, has furnished fleets for the
great commercial emporiums, and lumber for
all growing towns, unmindful almost that
within her borders were nearly two thousand
idle water-powers, "from 20 to 10000 horse
power each, making an aggregate of about
400, 900 horse power" until at last conscious
of her latent strength, and eager to use it, she
has with liberal sagacity invited the maniac
turer to come in. Her manufacturing villages
though yet few, have already gathered around
themselves an improving agriculture, type
of what will be when her water power is
brought into active operation. The example
furnished by one of these ought to be sufiici-
ent. Lewiston is one of her important CEN
tres. thirty years ago it was hardly village,
possessing as ITS greatest attraction an unoc-
cupied waterfall. Now it contains within its
limits 10000 people, disburses annually ST.
5000 for labor, receives by rail L. 900 tons
of freight and sends away 5000, gives oppor-