loo agriculture; of" maine. 



largement for modern machinery, the fitting of the field for 

 great and profitable crops and the pressing of the whole of the 

 farm into service in the forming of its forests and the carrying 

 of its pastures into fields. ]\Ioney in the bank is a temptation 

 and a danger to those who inherit it. The tilling of the soil 

 invites and must have both intellectual and bodily activity, fac- 

 tors upon which a worthy manhood and womanhood alone can 

 rest. There is, my friends, no permanency of the family and 

 will not be, apart from land, since such has never been the case, 

 in its physical, intellectual, material and social conditions. Let 

 the New England farmer, surrounded by great markets, a splen- 

 did civilization, and among a people whose ancestors have done 

 more for religious, civil and industrial liberty than any other 

 equal people in the history of the world, and whose example 

 is now the inspiration of all peoples to the remotest ends of the 

 earth, determine that their farms shall, so far as their example 

 and influence can so determine, become the permanent home 

 of the family. On this basis alone can the highest order of 

 farming be developed and the State at its best be developed. 



Second, the New England farmer must possess himself of the 

 highest order of industrial intelligence. The productive power 

 of man is measured exactly by the intelligence of his efforts. 

 Nations understand this, as applied to their mechanical indus- 

 tries, and are girding themselves up for the largest possession 

 of the markets of the world upon the advancement of technical 

 education. The necessity of such an education as applied to 

 farming is greater than for all other avocations since the farmer 

 comes in contact with a larger body of natural laws and must 

 add to his technical knowledge a keener observation than others, 

 since the cross currents of these natural laws often tend to 

 neutralize favorable ones. How to guide and control to our 

 ends these mysterious forces of nature is a fascinating problem. 

 Emerson said that nature never permits us to extort all her 

 secrets and thereby lose our curiosity in finding them out. 

 These are accompanied by the necessary exercise of mercantile 

 and executive faculties. I will not dwell upon this problem 

 since it must be obvious that the man who works in harmony 

 with nature works to the best advantage, and he who works in 

 opposition to the forces of nature tends thereby to neutralize 

 his own efforts. The value of agricultural knowledge has come 



