44 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



to leave the country and the ftirm for the city and the yard- 

 stick. 



The farmer's home is indeed one of plenty. Comfortable 

 houses, spacious barns, broad acres of meadow and field and 

 woodland ; good horses, cows and oxen, and sheep loaded 

 with finest of wool ; store-rooms filled with milk, and cream, 

 and butter, and cheese, and newly-laid eggs ; cellars stored with 

 pork and beef, and all the products of the field, the orchard, 

 and the garden, — are the almost constant surroundings of the 

 farmer, and it would seem they leave little to be desired. 

 And yet, the young men and young women of to-day find too 

 little attraction, in the farmer's home and in the farmer's pur- 

 suits ; and too many of them leave the quiet homestead, and 

 cast their lot with the crowded populations of the cities — . 

 Avhere some, indeed, succeed, but where many, after a long 

 strnggle, utterly fail. 



Now, if there be anything that we can do to make the 

 attractions of the farm and fiirm-life greater than they now are, 

 and thus retain more of the best young men and women in 

 the farmers' ranks, surely we are ready, I know, to consider 

 candidly any suggestions which tend to secure this great 

 result. 



Since there is so much of plenty and of physical comfort in 

 the farmer's home and in the fiirmer's life, it would seem that 

 hardly more is needed to make that life desirable by the 

 young than that the homes should be made still more beauti- 

 ful and attractive, and that the idea of drudgery should be 

 still more separated from the duties of the farmer's wife. 



I am not unmindful that I am here stepping on delicate 

 ground ; but this shall not deter me from saying that it is my 

 conviction that fiirmers will greatly advance their own interests, 

 and greatly contribute to the Avelfare of the community and of 

 the State, if they will give still more attention to adorning 

 and beautifying their homes, and thus making them as attract- 

 ive as possible to those whom they Avould win to the noble 

 work in which they themselves are engaged. 



A conveniently planned, and architecturally beautiful, and 

 neatly painted farm-house, — no matter how humble, if it only 

 serve its purpose, — and this, surrounded by a well-kept lawn, 

 will do much to make the ambitious boy and girl contented 



