356 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



apprehensive that we should not get much, but the ilfeason has 

 been wet and warm and we got a pretty fair crop of hay. 



I have tried some other business, but I think that farmers, if 

 they will pay strict attention to their business, can make a com- 

 fortable living and educate their children properly and get rich 

 enough. I do not believe it to be true that a great property is 

 desirable. A farmer who is worth five to ten thousand dollars is 

 as well off as anj'body in the world ; he is well enough off, and if 

 he aspires for more, he sometimes does that which is not right. 

 If we could be content with a farm of one to two hundred acres 

 and cultivate it properly and make use of our means on the farm 

 — not letting our minds run after fine carriages, and stylish horses 

 and horse racing — attending strictly to our business, the farmers 

 of Maine will be as happy, and as independent, and as good 

 Christian people as any in the world. I have travelled extensively 

 over the Western and Southern States; I know they raise a great 

 deal of corn and many cattle there, but you. will find, in travelling 

 over those States as I have — Illinois, and Indiana, Missouri, and 

 Arkansas, Kansas, and Kentucky — that the people don't live 

 as well, don't have as many of the comforts of life, nor as good 

 houses, as they do in Maine. I advise our young men to content 

 themselves with living nearer home, and applying all their 

 energies and industry to their farms. If they do this, they will 

 get rich enough, and enjoy all needful comforts and preserve their 

 health and be useful. Let our young men live honestly and be 

 industrious, and they will succeed. 



The greatest drawback that 1 know of, is the trouble of getting 

 suitable domestics. Our women are too severely taxed and die 

 prematurely in consequence of hard work. Our girls are growing 

 up but unwilling to be domestics, or to help their mothers. They 

 don't do quite as well as they ought to do. If the speaker had 

 told us how to supply this great want and remedy this great evil, 

 he would have done even better service than he has. Every man 

 that has a family realizes the want. My wife was trained to make 

 butter and cheese when she was a girl. I married her when she 

 was twenty-two, and there has not been a .year when she has not 

 made all our butter and cheese, and as good as can be made ; and 

 she makes it now at seventy-three years of age. I see young 

 students here who are learning agriculture, and I want to whisper 

 a word to then. When you choose a wife, select one that has 



