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to Agricultural pursuits; and as our timber is destined to be diminished sooner or later to a domestic supply, it may be good policy so far as may be within the means and ability of the State to encourage the formation of Agricultural Societies.

We can hardly expect that individual efforts alone, are competent readily to introduce and diffuse a knowledge of the improved modes and processes of culture, and of the relative value of the products which may be adapted to our soil and climate.

Should the market value of Hemp continue what it has been for several years past, it is believed by many, whose opinions are entitled to great respect, that in connection with improved machinery, now known and used in some of our sister States, in preparing it for market, the culture may be introduced in many parts of Maine with a fair prospect of important advantage to the State. It is highly probable that the means of giving a bounty, bearing some proportion in the estimation of competent judges, to the importance of the advantages to be derived to the State, in case of successful experiment, would elicit demonstrative evidence of the value of a product, hitherto unappreciated by the people of Maine. If so happy a result should follow from a competent experiment, it would give an additional value to our numerous waterfalls adapted to give motion to machinery, as lumber shall decrease.

It will be the duty of this Legislature, pursuant to the Constitution, to make provision for a general valuation, and to cause the number of the inhabitants of the State to be ascertained; and an early attention to this subject is recommended.

Our Militia system, being a compound result of the authority delegated to the General Government, and of duty imposed by the federal charter upon the State, cannot be entirely dispensed with. And were it within the sphere of State power, it requires no stretch of foresight to anticipate the evils which would flow from its dissolution; but still it becomes a duty to enquire, whether the unequal sacrifice of time and money, the effect