60 BOARD OP AGRICULTURE. 



Home is a word of deep meaning-, potent to awaken the good 

 within us. Spoken to the ear of the young- person when first cast 

 among strangers, it quickens the sensibility to a degree that no 

 other word in the language can do, save one. 



The home — the domicil, as we are accustomed to see it — is a 

 thing of great and gi'ave significance. I have thought it strange 

 that some highly gifted and cultured intellect, who moves the 

 masses with the tongue, has not made the word a text for the 

 finest play upon words that ever held an American audience. The 

 professional lecturer has left it to us to be treated in our own 

 way. 



I come before you as one somewhat familiar with rural life 

 and its industries, and can only speak to you understandingly who 

 are in the same walks. 



When we wish to hear what is adapted to our needs, and for 

 our own interest, it is manifest in reason, and it is ouiftxperience, 

 that we must look to those whose chief education and interests are 

 in our own pursuits. We must seek our own counsels, and do 

 much of our own talking. 



American homes, as we see them, are the outgrowth, the expo- 

 nents of the civilization in the current of whose onward flow we 

 find ourselves cast. " This civilization has been a plant of slow 

 growth, originating under peculiar conditions of soil and climate, 

 and propagated only over such portions of the earth's surface as 

 afi"orded similar conditions." This civilization is what is called, 

 in the forcible language of H. T. Buckle, "the European epoch of 

 the human mind." It depends in its effects upon the relation be- 

 *tween the climate and the laborer ; and its progress is through the 

 energy of man, which maybe unlimited. There is another kind of 

 civilization, springing up in fertile districts within the tropics, flour- 

 ishing for a time and to a degree, which derives its force from the 

 bounties of nature. It had an existence in favored spots long ante- 

 rior to our historic period ; and has flourished in southern China, in 

 India, Egypt, Peru and Mexico, To understand something of 

 this growth — this European civilization — and the laws which gov- 

 ern it, to comprehend in some degi'ce the causes through which 

 has grown the degree of human culture and improved condition 

 of whicli we partake, we may well spend a few minutes in look- 

 ing along the lines of its progress. 



" Every living organism, whether animal or vegetable, has a 

 certain geographical range, which is determined by the conditions 



