The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1879-10-06
AGRICULTURAL.
THEBOY FARMERS OF MAINE.
Address by Stillman B. Allen OF
Boston,
Delivered Before the York County Agri-
cultural Society at Berwick.

neighbors. Twenty years is long absence,
but we have not forgotten one another.
recognize in many of the young men here
so strong resemblance to their fathers that
it seems as if time had stood still for nearly
quarter of century and the faiends OF
long ago, young and unchanged were before
me-
wish to speak to these young men, and
will do SO by classes.
First, to those of you who have decided to
leave home and seek your fortunes in our
large cities or in the great West.
Young men, go, and the God of your IA
theirs 90 with you. You are wanted in the
West. Her fertile fields need your labor.
Her growing business needs your enterprise.
Her schools need your encouragement ana
help and some of you are wanted as teach
ers. In all that goes to develop new coun-
try and to build up good institutions, young
men from Maine are wanted. gu are
needed in the cities. Count up the earnest,
successful merchants, builders, mechanics
and professional men and you will find a
country, and many of them from Maine.
Don't go with view to simply dress well
and live easy. Don't think because
you can write fair hand you can
be exempt from hard work Thousands OF
such young men are now waiting Tor EN-
ployment which will never come. Not long
ago we inserted in one daily paper an adj
vertisement for writer in our of
flee at very moderate sala-
ny, and within four days received 372 an
swers. Success can only be found by hard
untiring work. There is no place for drones
in a great city. but plenty of room for ear
nest, prudent, active, live young men in
every trade, business and profession.
Wherever you go, do not forget the old
home. Carry into busy life the precepts of
your fathers and the loving memory OF your
mothers, and remember that wherever may
be your success in life, you can never rise to
a higher station than that of New England
farmer.
The second class of young men includes
those who are undecided whether to go
away or to stay at home. Young men,
think twice before you decide to leave.
There is a certainty of reasonable success
and happiness if you remain here 1t IS
doubtful if you go abroad If you go far to
the great West, you leave schools and
churches behind you. There are few lee
lures and less amusements. Most ofwhat
we call common comforts of life here, would
be great Injuries there. Both you and your
families must submit to many hardships I'M
til the best of your young life is over. Then
a reasonable success is probable but by no
means certain.
If you go to the city this uncertainty in
creases. Many remain clerks and slbordin-
ates all their lives; and of every hundred
who commence business it has been found
that ninety-.eyen fail, while not one in a
thousand accumulates even moderate for
tune.
The whole shore is strewn with wrecks OF
business men. 1t is very pitful to look upon
these men. You will meet them every day.
They have succeeded or appeared to succeed
for awhile and finally failed, having nothing
left but expensive habits and tastes which
can no longer be gratified, and unable to use
whatever ability they may have to advan-
tage. And so, broken hearted and dis
couraged at first too proud to work, and at
last unable to obtain it, they become bur-
dens to themselves and their friends. Look
at all these things and at the prospect at
home fairly and honestly before you decide,
and then do what you believe to be best.
The third class consists of all those who
intend to remain at home and do their best
there. Young men, you have chosen well.
You may not meet so great success or gain
so large fortune as some who go away, but
you cannot fail in life as many of them must
and will. If you are farmers, you will not
have so large crops as your Western brother,
but they will bring you higher prices. All
the best OF your life you will be surrounded
by friends, circumstances and opportunities
which improve hearts and minds, and which
make happy, comfortable and cheerful
homes and which cannot be found in a new
country.
Our rugged New England soil can, and if
properly titled, will produce good crops, and
while you are raising them you largely in
crease the value Of your farms. Indeed, it
seems as if young man, if willing to work
nomically and deny himself of all luXuries
as he would be obliged to for years out in
prairie life, he would accumulate as much
and about as rapidly.
Remember what grand State you are
living in. Let us look at it together.
1t is nearly four times as large as Massach-
usetts. Its exact Gentle is crossed by the 43th
parallel of latitude, so that it is equally dis
tant from the equator and the north pole.
The sea coast is so diversified by little bays,
inlets, promontoriessand capes that if the sea
line could be Strengthened out, it would
grow from 225 to 1900 miles.
Along this shore and from fifty to seventy
five miles inland are villages and farms grow
scarce until they all fade into a great path
less forest, so grand and so vast that if por
tons within it as large as Vermont and
Rhode Island were cleared and settled their
inhabitants would have difficulty in finding
their way to each other or to the outer
world. The whole area of our State is about
81 900 miles, of which this great primeval
forest contains about 10000 square miles,
being many times larger than the Great
Black Forest of Germany, or the wilderness
of Northern New York.
Our State is rich in minerals throughout
its extent, and in nearly all its thousand
hills is found the finest granite in the world
n,r Srrlp1y bui16prc in all
northern cities for a thousand years. In the
eastern counties are great quantities of lime
stone. There is also an iron mine from
which was taken in one year over two thous-
and tons of finest iron in the world. In
other places there is slate, better than that
of Wales and more abundant. The State
Geologist estimated the quantity in single
hill in FoXcroft at over million tons. An
thracite coal, MICA in abundance, white, blue
and clouded marble, galena or common lead,
copperas and tin ore have been found. And
quite recently there have been discoveries of
large quantities of copper of great richness
at Bluehill, and of silver, with traces of gold
at Acton and Lebanon in our own county.
Many of these discoveries are yet scarcely
known except to biologists or perhaps few
people in the vicinity who have no means to
develop their value, but in years to come
they and the hundreds of other mines yet
undiscovered will enrich their owners.
But of greater value than all these miner
ais with their dazzling promises is our Won
derful water power. There is no portion of
the globe equally habitable in which are so
many lakes and rivers. The State Commits
sioner says 'the Kennebec river has more
lakes connected with it than the gigantic
Oronoco. and the Penobscot than all the riv
ers in Africa so far as known."-Within our
State are over 1900 lakes not including many
in the wilderness not down on the map.
They cover nearly $500 square miles in all.
Most of them lie at or near the heads OF riv-
ers which run to the sea, and their great
altitude gives to their descending water an
immense power. Rangely lake is 1900 feet,
lake Umbagog and Moosehead are each
about 1000 feet above the level of the sea,
and the whole surface of the State is on an
average abont 800 feet in elevation, so that
the water of all the lakes and rivers must
fall that distance before it reaches the ocean.
This will be better appreciated when you
remember that Lake Itaska, the head of the
Mississippi, is elevated only 1915 feet above
the Gulf of Mexico, toward which the river
slowly runs over 200 miles; and the water
of Lake Superior, through the lakes and The
st. Lawrence, and including Niagara Falls
and The rapids have, in 1900 miles, fall of
only $50 feet, or less than half that of three
of our great lakes, or about the same as the
average fall of all our waters in about one
tenth of the distance