80 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



EVENING. 



THE FARM AND THE HOME. 

 By n. L. Leland, Sangerville. 

 With the Creator's blessing, man received the eomraand — 



" Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it." 



The cultivation of the land is co-existent with civilized man. It 

 is the source of civilization and the basis of National life, growth, 

 and prosperit}'. 



Successful agriculture requires a fertile soil, a fixed location, and 

 permanent homes. With permanent homes come social, moral, 

 educational, civil and political rights and duties ; hence society*, 

 churches, schools, laws, legislation, governments, the State, the 

 Nation. 



Washington said of agriculture, that "it is the most healthful. 

 most useful and most noble emplo3ment of man." We ought and 

 do feel a laudable pride in our profession, in our farms and homes, 

 dotting the sunny hillsides and clustered in the pleasant valleys of 

 our noble State. To make these farms what they now are, to win 

 them from the primeval forest, to subdue the rock-bound, unyeild- 

 ing soil and convert it into productive fields, has been a hard task, 

 demanding labor, hard, persistent labor. It is our boast that tliis 

 labor has been performed b}- freemen and women, freeholdei-s of 

 the soil. It is a pleasure to do homage to that noble band of 

 pioneers, whose intelligence and virtue, industry and economy, have 

 achieved such grand results, and have bequeathed to their children 

 and successors this goodly heritage. New England homes and New 

 England common schools, are the ideal homes and the moral schools 

 of the Nation. 



In the time long past, Virgil, the Roman poet, wrote : "Praise a 

 large farm, but cultivate a small one." History- and the poet's pas- 

 torals inform us that, in the years of Rome's prosperity, the laud 

 was held in small farms and owned In' freemen. Regulas was 

 called from labor on his little farm, by the Senate, to lead the Roman 

 Legions to victory. 



In New England, from its earliest settlements until the present 

 time, the system of medium-sized and small farms has generally 



