394 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



come ? And, reaching home, the newspaper — the farmer's paper — 

 is thrown in at the window, or handed to Charley who comes out 

 for it, and while the farmer puts up his horse for the night, the 

 young people, ever eager to read their part, gallop over the chil- 

 dren's column, and after the evening meal is partaken the farmer 

 or his wife or perhaps the oldest boy or girl, read the paper aloud 

 to the family circle. The news is commented upon, the opinions 

 of the paper criticised — for such is the general intelligence of our 

 farming community, and honor to the press for it — that men, and 

 women too, have thoughts of their own upon almost every leading 

 topic of the day, and are free to express them. And I sometimes 

 think, that for once I should like to enter in person and simulta- 

 neously, each of these thousands of Maine homes where I do now 

 enter in reality, and see for myself the reception I should meet. 

 But after all it is better that it is impossible. What reproofs I 

 escape, probably — what applause, perhaps I never hear; how many 

 disputes I avoid, how many enemies I never meet, how many friends 

 I have now who might be disappointed should they see me as I 

 am. And so I live in the pleasant delusion that all my readers 

 are generous critics, and do my best week after week, to make 

 my budget of thought attractive to some ; conveying information 

 to some, suggesting useful inquiry to some, and producing no- 

 feelings but those of good will in the mind of a single reader. 

 Turning these things over in my mind, and knowing I was to 

 meet many of my family of readers face to face at this time, it 

 occurred to me to present some of my own thoughts, — which may 

 not be wholly new, or particularly different from your own — upon 

 the power and influence of the press, and its connection with agri- 

 cultural progress. 



Now, I do not propose to go back to the days of antiquity to 

 show the condition of agriculture before the operations of the farm 

 were governed by thought and mind ; when the implements of 

 husbandry were the rudest contrivances possible, and the work of 

 tilling the 'soil was limited to the mere labor required to produce 

 sufficient to maintain life in its simplest forms — the investigation 

 would be somewhat foreign to my subject. But I do want you to 

 consider that only fifty years ago< — and there are many men who 

 can remember that — the only agricultural society in New England, 

 and almost the only one in the country, voted, in a public meet- 

 ing, that two of its members should become subscribers to the 

 " public paper printed in Boston called the New England Farmer," 



