18 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



ing forward to a longer summer vacation as their only hope ? 

 Do 3^011 know all the species and varieties of trees and shrubs 

 within five miles of your doors ? Or have you studied the 

 rocks and minerals which compose these hills, and form these 

 valleys ? Probably none of us realize and appreciate as we 

 should the beauty and grandeur of these scenes around us. 

 Bayard Taylor, after having travelled over all Europe, when 

 standing on the top of Powow Hill in Salisbury, is said to 

 have remarked that he never before had seen any thing so 

 beautiful. Why need any of us go abroad in search of beau- 

 tiful scenery, when Nature has done so much for us at our 

 very doors? Do you in this section fully appreciate your 

 lovely Merrimack, with its tributaries the Spicket and Shaw- 

 sheen ; those hills of Andover; Boxford with her twenty 

 ponds ; Wenham and Essex with their deep damp woods ; 

 Cape Ann with its unsurpassed drives, its variety of ocean 

 woodland and villa ; the shore-towns with their seventy-five 

 miles of seacoast? All these form a scene of beauty and 

 loveliness nowhere excelled, if equalled, in this country or 

 in the world. 



Farmers of Essex County, I congratulate you upon this 

 the return of our annual festive occasion. Tliis beautiful 

 day, this large assemblage of friends and neighbors, the 

 fine displa}^ of domestic animals and the unusually rich one 

 of fruits and flowers in yonder hall, are all auspicious omens. 

 Let us, then, together take courage for the future. Let us be 

 enthusiastic in our work, making the most of our circum- 

 stances, ever ready to stand firmly for the right, for 

 morality, for temperance, for good and wholesome laws, 

 not being deceived by the promises of politicians and dema- 

 gogues ; then shall our future be even more prosperous than 

 the past, and we be proverbially the strength and hope of 

 the nation. 



