266 .BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan., 



you know the railway has changed all that — not forever, but for a 

 while — until the people, like water that has broken its former 

 bounds, find their new level. Let us wait a httle and work. Just 

 now some fellow out west, on a railway, has a lot of frozen mutton, 

 poultry, and preserved eggs, bought cheap to spoil our markets. 

 Presently his first costs will be dearer, his freights more, and his 

 home market better. Meanwhile, we must learn his trade better 

 than he knows it — we who are young and strong. 



This is the position, then, we are in and must maintain. We 

 have a natural right to leave the farm and garden when we get 

 too uneasy, ignorant, and unfit to remain there, tempered by the 

 probability that we must yield, in ourselves or in our progeny, to 

 the quite as natural inclination to return. Life is constant motion, 

 remember, and new motions spring even from death. 



But some one asks why we should have small farmers and small 

 farming at all ? "Why small farmers any more than small potatoes, 

 in these extra scientific days ? Here we go into a batch of ques- 

 tions as old as private theft and public robbery. I do not intend 

 knocking down your judgment with any twitting of facts that I 

 can avoid in this paper, but science or no science, the smartest 

 of us have grown some small potatoes in our time, and the biggest 

 farmer among us will speak with the greatest pride of younger 

 days, when he was a small one. 



I never heard any potato-grower complain, though, of a reason- 

 able share of small tubers. Some prefer a medium or egg size, 

 with well-developed eyes for seed. Some say it is better for a 

 large farmer to begin rather small. I like such seed and such 

 beginnings myself. 



But when, from drouth, or poverty, or any other cause, we find 

 our potatoes and farmers growing smaller and poorer every year, 

 and less capable of propagating virile and productive crops in the 

 following seasons, then the decrease is a proper subject for inquiry. 



Is it not becoming manifest to everybody that the standard of 

 manhood and womanhood has been lowered at a fearful rate 

 among us during very recent years ? 



The clothing of the modern Procrustean bed — the sheets, 

 blankets, and comforters in market — are made so short now as to 

 freeze off anybody who sticks out over about five feet. 



An idea of abolishing trial by jury is being seriously discussed, 

 because of the diSiculty of finding a dozen sufficient jurors. 



