280 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



THE ANNUAL ADDRESS. 



BY HON. MORRIS M. ESTEE. 



Me. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: I know it will be rather 

 dull to listen to the subject upon which I will address you, after 

 being at the races at the Fair this afternoon. What I intend to say 

 to-night is an appeal to your reason. We are here to compare prod- 

 ucts, and by a generous rivalry to show who can produce the most 

 in quantity and the best in quality. A spirit of rivalry is an incen- 

 tive to good farming; any farming that is not intelligent is not suc- 

 cessful, and will not pay. The common idea that anj' man can make 

 a good farmer is not correct; it is a fallacy to say there is nothing to 

 learn in farming; that our fathers knew it all, and that we know no 

 more than they. The real truth is, farming is a progressive business; 

 the man who does not progress in it is a failure. There is something 

 the matter where a farmer is afraid to go to fairs and show what he 

 raises and tell how he does it. There are no secrets in farming that 

 cannot be learned by any intelligent man, but it requires a very 

 intelligent man to know the whole business. In this respect there is 

 nothing like comparisons from a colt up to a baby. Everything has 

 some good points and some instructive points. You may be certain 

 that a man never shows what he does not take pride in; he_ must 

 fairly love the full, plump kernels of wheat he raises, the heifer or 

 the colt or the pig he exhibits. Why, the man who does not love a 

 good horse don't think much of his wife and children. When I see 

 a farmer walking deliberately around his horse and then stop and 

 look at him, I expect the next instant to see him pick up the little 

 one that is clinging to his legs and toss it up, saying, "This is mine, 

 too." An honest pride in what one creates is the strongest incentive 

 to create the best. There should be pleasure in what we have and 

 an ambition in what we do. Farming is not a dull business if the 

 farmer tries to make it a lively business. You must love to be a 

 farmer, or else do something that you do like; you must raise some- 

 thing that will stay with you like good horses or good cattle. I think 

 it is creditable for one farmer to believe that he has little better 

 horses or little better cattle than his neighbor has, for if your horse 

 has not speed he may have strength and beauty; if he has not 

 strength and beauty he may have a good disposition; if he has nei- 

 ther, of course you don't want him, and to find out these qualities all 

 you have to do is to go to the Fair. 



PROGRESS in farming. 



I was speaking of the necessity of progress in farming; by progress 

 I mean that every day we should learn something that we did not 

 know before, and, if possible, do something that we had not done 

 before. It is said that the man who makes two blades of grass grow 



