It was then to an all-around development that our policy of high protection was applied in this particular state. Under its stimulus her manufactories have multiplied and enlarged in a truly magnificent fashion. The story of this development cannot be told here, but like all stories of rapid growth it excites and dazzles. The results are sufficient for the present purpose. In 1909 the manufacturing plants of Rhode Island turned out goods worth $279,438,000—about $375 for each man, woman, and child in the state. But while she has been making things to sell at this prodigious rate, she has ceased entirely to build ships and send men to sea to trade. That is, while high duties were stimulating mightily the making of all that went into ships, they were making the ships so costly to buy that nobody could afford them. Rhode Island had her factories, and part of the price paid was her ships—her ships and her farms, for her farms steadily and surely went to pieces. To-day she has not over 4000 sheep, one-tenth of what she raised fifty years ago. Between 1880 and 1900 the improved land decreased by 17 per cent. She is practically dependent on the world outside for food. She buys her apples on the Pacific coast, her flour in the Mississippi Valley, and her meat from the Beef Trust. But what has the tariff to do with the neglect of the Rhode Island farm? Everything. A farm is a family affair as no other industry is. It yields its best only when it passes down from generation to generation. Tenants, however faithful, are not sufficient. It demands its own, and in Rhode Island its own has deserted the farm for the factory. Quick fortunes seemed to lie that way. It seemed to demand neither the patience nor the drudgery; it was ready money at least, and the young men and women left the farms to the old people, and the old people died. Those who followed them were but dregs of the old communities—the shiftless, the weak, the ignorant, and the unambitious. The farm yearly dropped back and it lies to-day a forlorn and unkempt relic of its old self.