7G STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTUrcE. 



mechanism, can direct the operations of the farm and farm-lionse, and guide 

 with intelligent hand the bcantifully constructed machinery that relieves the 

 strain on muscles to highly productive and remunerative results. Let us make 

 agriculture an interesting study, and entering our legislative halls, by every 

 means in our power provide for its protection and promote its advancement. Let 

 us guard jealously our homestead laws, and so enact that labor and lal)or only 

 can own the soil, and can never be dispossessed of its birthright to tlie land it 

 tills, — the only sure safeguard of our freedotn and prosi:)erity. 



Let us banish forever and in every case the back kitchen "lean-to," where 

 our girls used to be, and are even now imprisoned from morning till night of 

 many a weary day, — where the low-browed door creeps out under the sloping 

 eaves into the chip yard, and the low ceiling bears down its hot reek on heart 

 and brain, as housewives know with well remembered pain. Let us move the 

 kitchen out bodily from behind, make it spacious of all rooms in the house, 

 crown it with lofty ceilings, protect it with pleasant porches, promote it to a 

 front door leading out upon a clean walk of its own, where while our girls com- 

 pound the alchemy of life for the kings and queens of the household, they 

 can see all the world as it goes by, and watch the progress of the age. Let 

 us lift the soiled f amilv linen from the shoulders of women and banish the 

 weekly washings and ironings — those consumption-inducing, death-dealing 

 ordeals — to the neighboring laundry where steamers and rollers can accom- 

 plish more effectually and neatly the desired results. 



Let us investigate, and investigating learn how much cheaper are cooperative 

 laundries, creameries and bakeries, where skilled oversight can teach our girls 

 by a few pleasant hours of labor weekly how to administer scientifically and 

 successfully to the necessities, healtli, and comfort of the loved ones at home. 



Let us by every means in our power lay the burdens of life upon inanimate 

 things, shorten the hours of labor, and multiply the hours of spiritual growth, 

 intellectual culture, recreation, and enjoyment. Let us discourage by all the 

 moral weight in our natures vagrancy in whatever form, whether clothed in 

 broadcloths and gambling in patent rights and stocks and bonds, or in rags 

 and tatters (e({ually a mendicant), soliciting alms at our doors. Let us make 

 it honorable to earn our bread and disgraceful to eat it without, my brothers 

 and my sisters, and our task is accomplished. 



Our boys educated gentlemen, and our girls refined and cultivated ladies, 

 in love with the beautiful farm-house and home, its pictured walls and well- 

 filled libraries, its flower-decked walks, its breezy woodlands and rich fields of 

 waving grass and grain, will find it for their happiness and interest to remain 

 upon, and will show no inclination to leave, the farm. 



The question as to whether it is desirable for the State to make of the Agri- 

 cultural College an experimental farm and school was somewhat discussed, and 

 all the expressions were in favor of so doing. 



A numljer of commendatory speeches were made in reference to the work of 

 the institute and the good which it had accomplished. Resolutions of thanks 

 to Profs. Beal and Kedzie, Secretary Baird, Messrs. Fraser and Felker, Mrs. 

 M. J. Kutz and others who had aided in making the institute a success were 

 adopted. The session was then adjourned sine die. 



