DAIRY MEETING. I37{ 



to see the difficulties that the farmer of today has to struggle 

 with. If they do not have an appreciation of that I feel that 

 the work will be somewhat like charity work in the cities. The 

 city gives money to be expended and takes no particular interest 

 in the way it is expended. 



I thoroughly believe in what the Editor of the Maine Farmer 

 said about better business methods in farming. If we have 

 better business methods on the farm we will get a better living 

 on the farm ; and the farmers need to have faith in their own 

 business, and that is what 60 or 75 per cent of the farmers in 

 New England do not have. If you go out and talk to a farmer 

 and ask him what it costs to produce a quart of milk or raise a 

 bushel of corn, he says he does not know and he is not willing 

 to try to find out. A man like that you can never give much 

 assistance. He must first appreciate that it is important for him 

 to study the details of his business. Self help is the most im- 

 portant help that we can have. If we can instill into the farmers 

 some ideas to work out themselves, that is all we can hope for. 



J. P. Buckley. 



The last banquet I attended in this hall was a very interesting 

 one to me. It was last ^Nlarch, — the annual banquet of the 

 Portland Board of Trade. What pleased me and interested me 

 most in the addresses that evening, was the thought in regard to 

 the agricultural development of our State, that Mr. Thompson 

 has so clearly brought out tonight. As he spoke of coming 

 across the country and seeing what they were doing in other 

 states and how we are in the background, it reminded me of 

 the time, some 30 years ago, when I was in Detroit, Michigan. 

 We had representatives from New Orleans to Canada, and from 

 Maine to California. My partner and I had been out rowing 

 and when we came in a gentleman from the far West wanted 

 to know what Club we represented. We told him the Portland 

 Boat Club. He wanted to know if it was Portland. Oregon. 

 We said, "Portland, Maine." He looked us all over and then 

 made the remark, — "You are from way down in ]\Iaine where 

 they raise the sun with a crowbar." That is the opinion they 

 have all over the country and we have got to show them what 



