DEPENDENCE ON THE COW. 19 



ing for the Avinter, I have been unable to make that prepara- 

 tion which I should have been glad to have made, to meet so 

 ■intelligent a body of men and women as I now see before 

 me. I labor, also, under the disadvantage of having, in 

 your able Secretary, a partial friend, who has overrated my 

 abilit}^ to instruct or to interest you. I also labor under the 

 disadvantage of being "the light of Herkimer County." If 

 I am " the light of Herkimer County," surely there must be 

 a good deal of darkness in Herkimer. But, my friends, 

 with the hearty welcome which has been given me, I am 

 glad to clasp hands with you, not " across the bloody chasm," 

 but across the intervening space between Barre and Her- 

 kimer. 



I feel somewhat at home with you, and 1 hope your chair- 

 man will not prove a Root out of dry ground. I also hope 

 that many young Roots will spring up from the original Root, 

 which shall replace him in your estimation, when he is gone. 



Six weeks ago, if any man had said that we were more de- 

 pendent upon the horse than we were upon our fellow-man 

 to move the wheels of this commercial world, he would have 

 been pronounced an idiot ; but that fact has been established 

 within six weeks. It is self-evident to every man here. Yet 

 we have been able to substitute for the horse, man-power to 

 some extent. I have seen men dragging express- wagons in 

 the streets of Utica, the city nearest my home. I have seen 

 a man on a mail-route, twentj^-four miles in length, carrying 

 the rnail-bag on his back. I have seen the slow, yet strong 

 and patient ox, substituted in the place of the horse, and the 

 untiring steam-power brought to fill his place. Yot with all 

 these helps we have come to the conclusion that we have been 

 more dependent upon the horse than we were aware of. 

 Now, gentlemen, should another like epidemic strike the 

 dairy cow, and destroy her usefulness, only for a time, how 

 would it affect us ? What should we brinsj forward to take 

 her place? We are dependent upon her for milk, for butter, 

 for cheese, and directly or indirectly, for veal, for beef, for 

 liver. What other animal, I say, could we bring in, unless 

 it be the goat, to fill her place ? Well, if the cow holds so 

 important a position in our domestic arrangements, it will 

 be well for us, on this occasion, to give her a passing 



