96 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan., 



good citizenship is to be a good husband. You cannot get 

 out of it. Now there may be some of the best old bachelors 

 in the world here in the State of Connecticut, and I have no 

 doubt there are, but they are good in spite of the fact that 

 they are old bachelors; they cannot help it; they probably 

 were made that way; they are not entitled to any credit, 

 but the good citizen presupposes matrimony. God made us 

 that way, and for that purpose, and we are not living up to the 

 object of our creation in being placed here on the earth unless 

 we become married; that is a fundamental fact. It is a fact, 

 and nobody can dispute it. It is a fact that marriage is one 

 of the institutions upon which good citizenship in the United 

 States of America is based, and he who does not marry does 

 not take one of the most important steps towards good 

 citizenship; that is one of the first steps towards good citizen- 

 ship. And then, when he does get married, he must be a 

 good husband. He must court that wife of his Monday, and 

 Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, and 

 Sunday ; he must court her all the time. I have no use for 

 any husband who is not perpetually courting his wife. The 

 finest flowers that he finds in the fields he should bring in 

 to her, and the first and finest fruits of the orchard are hers 

 by right. The very first strawberry that Mr. Hale picks I 

 know he sends in to Mrs. Hale. He has got to do it; he 

 cannot help it. If he wants her good will he wants to make 

 her know he is after it all the time, and that is what he has 

 got to do. Over in our section once there was a group 

 gathered around the old-fashioned stove in the village store, 

 and they were talking how they would live differently if they 

 had their lives to live over again. One said: " If I was 

 going to live my life over again I would do so and so differ- 

 ent from .what I did," and another said he would do so and 

 so, and there was a man there who in his young days had 

 married one of the most beautiful girls in that part of the 

 country, and one of the group said to him: "Look here, 

 George, you have been listening to this talk all this while, and 

 you haven't said a word; what would you do if you had your 

 life to live over again? " " Well, now," he says, " I'll tell you: 

 I know what I would do about all this miserable business you 

 have been talking about. If I had my life to live over again 

 I would court and marry Polly as soon as I could." That is 



