256 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



cannot be much longer. Our farmers must be thoroughly edu- 

 cated, and possess well selected libraries, to receive constant 

 additions from the best publications of the day. The farm cannot 

 much longer do without book-learning. And when we get it 

 thoroughly planted there, thus wedding science with practice, 

 farming will be considered the noblest calling on earth, and the 

 best intellects will be found devoted to its service. Then indeed 

 will " the wilderness blossom as the rose," and the millenial era 

 dawn upon our now darkened world. 



Educate your Boys and Girls. By all means, begin to educate 

 your boys and girls for the new era. for the higher life in agricul- 

 ture. Let them no longer look upon farm labor as degrading, 

 back-breaking drudgery, but as demanding the highest services of 

 the best intellects. In no other position is there the opportunity 

 for so much progress, and for doing the world so much good. 

 With the book of nature constantly open before us, and all the 

 lights of science for our guide, where can the intellect have such 

 ample scope, and all the powers of the mind be called so fully into 

 play, as on the farm ? 



MR. LEWIS' ADDRESS. 



I come before you on this occasion, as one having interests 

 nearly identical with yours. Your State produces; and will con- 

 tinue to produce to the end of time, (with proper management), 

 grasses unsurpassed for the production of butter and cheese, and 

 for the feeding of horses, cattle and sheep. 



So also Herkimer county produces grasses well adapted for the 

 production of good cheese. And notwithstanding the changing 

 policy of the Government, which will render an industrial pursuit, 

 which is good to-day, worthless to-morrow, we can say, surely 

 all flesh is grass. 



The "constant development of the varied resources of our coun- 

 try, embracing as it does almost every variety oi climate, and of 

 soil, will also render certain interests unprofitable where they 

 have been profitable, and others profitable where they have been 

 unprofitable, or untried. 



But owing to the very small area of good grass-producing 

 lands, which are otherwise well adapted to the production of 

 butter and cheese of the first quality, you of Vermont, and we of 

 Herkimer can change our milk, produced from our rich, aromatic 

 from our rich, aromatic grasses, into butter and cheese, of that 



