48 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



with his figures will show that other branches have gained from 

 their alliance with it. If we can receive these figures as a basis 

 for our calculation for the next generation, it shows us plainly that 

 in order to bring agriculture up to the line with other industries, we 

 need not fear to push our possibilities to the utmost extent that 

 there is room for them and a call for them that we as business men 

 should heed. 



These possibilities can all be greatly aided by our own exertions 

 The sailor who is intent to reach a distant port is never content 

 with idly drifting with the tides and currents, hoping that good 

 fortune will bring hira there. He trims his sails to every favoring 

 breeze, is ever on the lookout for dangers, and by his own exertions, 

 care and forethought anchors in time at his destination, but not 

 until he has many times been rudel}' buffeted and set back. So we, 

 if we will attain the success that we see awaiting the future, must 

 make up our minds to work a^; never before, not more b}' toil and 

 labor, but by the newer methods of business, in strife with the other 

 occupations of the land, bringing to our aid the same helps that the}' 

 are using, especially seizing upon that great agent that is to-day 

 regulating all business life, co-operation, by its aid reducing our ex- 

 penses, producing at less cost, lightening our labors and increasing 

 our profits We must be organized to guard against encroaching 

 legislation, unfair business restrictions and influences, and the social 

 laws enacted by false society. Of all organizations which are at 

 present carrying out these objects I know of none superior to the 

 Grange or the order of Patrons of Husbandry. 



There is one great question that we must not overlook in our esti- 

 mation of New England farm life. However profitable we may 

 make it to study its history and see from whence we and it came, 

 to reason and speculate as to the future and see what we and it may 

 become, there is an important feature that comes out more prom- 

 inently than either, in the fact that we are here as active participants 

 of the present, and likely to be for a few j-ears to come ; and our 

 question is, what is our outlook for reward? Columella, that old 

 Latin writer who fiourished in the first century of our era, and wrote 

 some twelve books upon agriculture, knew how to grumble as well 

 as any Yankee of to-day. His utterances regarding "our worthy 

 ancestors who esteemed it their glorj^ to take care of their farming 

 interests" etc., etc., sound as familiar as though published in a 

 Boston agricultural paper of the present time. His example has 



