140 AGRICULTURE OF MAINE. 



With these small farms and homes, and a dense peopling in the 

 country, neighborly intercourse and social life will be as easy on 

 the farm as in the village, and with the ownership of the land 

 vested in the people who live upon and work it, I can conceive 

 of no happier condition on earth. 



While the conditions of the future are to be different from the 

 conditions of the past — for paddock grazing and stall feeding 

 will be more largely practiced as the years go by — yet, under the 

 stimulus of business activity and the desire for gain, we must 

 not forget nature's laws or dare to violate them, as so many have 

 done in the past. 



The cow that we breed must be able to work and last. She is 

 not our co-worker for the present only, for she and her descend- 

 ants are to remain with us, and our boys, on these old farms, 

 through all the years to come. She and the plow, guided by the 

 skilled hands of men, are the keys that are to unlock the treasures 

 that lie hidden in the brown soils, all up and down the hills and 

 valleys of our grand old New England. 



