and to
leave in the Province; and for which I have no doubt, you will
adopt prudent remedies that will render this branch of industry
more staple, as well as more beneficial.

Vast sums are sent from this Province, in specie, for the purchase
of foreign agricultural produce. This enormous burthen operating in
fact, as a tax raised by foreign industry on our food, contributes
to raise high above the rate in surrounding Countries, the wages of
labour here, and to lay the Province under corresponding difficulty
and disability in every branch of its industry. It comes home to
us, grievously, in various forms, in every operation of our
domestic and political economy; and I appeal to your wisdom, to
your patriotism, to the real interests, and to the public spirit of
the Country for zealous co-operations in the measures and exertions
necessary to relieve the Province from this most serious
difficulty.

Agricultural, Emigrant, and other Societies should be encouraged to
extend and exert their influence in every way that can tend to
promote, improve, circulate and distinguish the modes and means
most favourable to augment the production of subsistence. By such
means, too, we may reasonably expect soon to possess a population
sufficient for the operative parts of all other branches of
industry; and when these several operations shall all be executed
by British Subjects and British Colonists, the Province will feel
and exhibit in her condition the good effects of having closed
those drains that have long carried off much capital which
otherwise would have been laid out in the Merchants' stores, in the
cultivation of the soil, and in other productive enterprizes of
vast advantage.

Large sums have been expended on the Great Roads of this Province;
but their condition shows the inefficiency of the present system,
in appropriation and execution. This arises, chiefly, from having
tried too much, and in such attempts dispersing limited means, to
superficial and endless labor; on works far too numerous and
costly, to be all substantially improved at the same time. Such
appropriation, therefore, should be made of the sums which may be
allotted to the Great Roads as may ensure effectual exertion upon
them in succession, and in the order of their importance; and at
the same time preclu