80 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



small pay. I am not here to discuss these points to-day, but I feel 

 warranted in saying the complaint cannot be fully sustained. 



Farming is a safe and sure business, one in which God is a part- 

 ner, if I may so speak. He says to us, I have made the soil, I have 

 arranged the seasons, and given you seed-time and harvest. You 

 are required to till the ground, sow and plant the seed, and take care 

 of the crops. I will send down tiie rain and the sunsiiine to moisten 

 and warm the ground, so as to insure the growth and maturit}' of 

 the promised harvest. Is there another so safe a partner? is there 

 another so safe a business? 



We hear people of all classes talking of hard times. This kind 

 of talk seems to be contagious, and even farmers who hardly know 

 when hard times come or go are complaining ; but still they live, hold 

 their own, and enjoy all the necessaries of life without diminution. 

 There is no class of men so well fortified against hard times, let 

 them come from any cause or quarter, as the farmer. Let a finan- 

 cial panic prevail, and prostrate all kinds of business in the trade 

 and manufacturing centres, and the farmer will feel it least of all. 

 The "bears" and "bulls" of Wall street may growl and roar till 

 other business is tottering to its foundation, but the farmer heeds it 

 not; he just moves along the '* even tenor of bis way," and would 

 not know there was the least business disturbance, did he not learu 

 it through the papers. 



There are certain solid, substantial, underlying facts connected 

 with farming, which no business panic can touch. No sudden or 

 unexpected change in business can, in the least, affect the source 

 from which the farmer derives all his living and income, the soil. 

 The soil just as readily, just as freely, just as bountifully pours its 

 blessings into the hands of the farmer, and if this contagious, hard- 

 times fever reaches a few, it is not because the^' are suflfering, but 

 because the}' think they are not making money so fast as some men 

 in other kinds of business. 



We may not accumulate a fortune by farming ; the period allotted 

 to human existence is too short to acquire wealth through the ordinary 

 profits arising from tilling the soil. Riches ought not to be the 

 primar}- object of life. We should aim higher, for that which flows 

 from contentment, happiness and the highest enjoyments to be found 

 in a life of activity and usefulness. It is obviously our duty to 

 secure a competence that will place us above want, a competence that 

 will supply us with every thing that will contribute to the highest 



