Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1912-02-13

tors. who spend here the fruits of pros
perty there
Maine has an interest in the preser-
Walton of that market, and that mar
ket cannot serve us il it is to be flood
ed with the commodities of lands
where incomes are smaller and living
is poorer. Every attempt to do il in
the past has brought disaster. Every
such attempt in the past was resisted
by our wisest leaders, Blaine. Reed,
Dingley. Frye. whose counsel is yet
with us if their voices are stilled.
What We Send to the Market.
We know in a general way that most
of the commodities produced in Maine
find market in cur own industrial
towns or in the direction of Boston or
New York. Have we ever pictured
wildly before our minds what that
market actually means? Being the
first agricultural State of New Eng
land we have great interest in her
manufa ctures because the industrial
workers are the best customers of the
farmers. We sell to them, for instance
hogs to the value of more than mil
lion and a half of dollars year.
Those figures fade away as all statis-
ties do Put of we could see and hear
the two hundred thousand hogs that
bring this million and half of dollars,
If we could see them and hear them as
they go on their complaining way we
should realize what that market takes.
If we could then see following the two
hundred thousand hogs, nearly as
many of the cattle kind, filing the
Il. nd n those
markets that our industries have built
up. we would understand that wonder
fui home market which pays us nearly
four millions of dollars for those cat
tie. And behind the cattle would come
twelve thousand horses, which bring
to our state yearly one and three qiar-
ters millions of dollars.
Excellence Of Nearby Markets.
Our producers get the best of prices
because these markets are near and
mot distant across the ocean. Even in
the exceptional matter of mules, of
which Maine produces about A year,
we beat the Missouri price of SAL a
mule by getting $149 a mule.
Maine sells almost $t0,000,000 worth
of milk, cream, butter, and eggs. Much
of this is bought in the Industrial mar
kets of New England. not a little is
used by the thousands of summer Wis
itors. who come from the regions of the
tall chimneys with $25, 100000 in their
pockets and go back with sunshine
in their souls.
There is not time to tell of the other
commodities that make up the total
of 100000, 600, which measures the
value of our farm products. They will
go on increasing if our markets con-
tinue good. There are four and a half
millions of apple trees and one fig tree
in Maine, and a million of these trees
are not yet of bearing age. If our
apples sell for 100000 a year now,
they will sell for much more in a few
years when the 1900 farmers who
have set out the million little trees,
see the fruition of their hopes.
Our Forward March to Better Living.
Some one says, why speak of horses,
hogs, apple trees, shoes and cloth?
These are material things. and So
cieties and nations do not live for what
they can produce. 1t is true that great
wealth concentrated in a few hands
may be a curse. 1t is true that ma
ton should have high ideals of Justice
But a modest prosperity as the result
of honest effort means progress, civil
lization, the broadening of mems minds,
and with these all else follows. Eighty
years ago, when Daniel Webster want
ed to provo the material prosperity of
New England he cited the fact that the
colleges were we'll attended. Perhaps
no better measure of the progress of a
people is to be found than the attend
allce of their sons and daughters at
college. Twenty-Five years ago the
young men and women of Maine who
went to the colleges of the New Eng
land states amounted to little more
than one in every thousand of the.
population. Now. after our great ad-
vance in material prosperity after the
vast improvement that has taken place
in the market for our hogs horses, APP
pies, shoes. and cloth, a little more
than one in four hundred goes to col
lege. In the light of these figures we
know what Ambassador Bryce meant
the other day when he said to an
American audience:
Your have done more than any
other people have ever done to give
to the ordinary voter education, COM
fort. and the fullest sense of rising in
the world and making the most of his
life
What Equilibrium of Manufactures
and Agriculture Means.
This is a remarkable advance, due
largely / believe to the fact that there
has been established in this country a
fortunate equilibrium between the
two great branches of production. agri-