78 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



a flock comes over and begins to deposit their eggs along the 

 benches, they know what to expect the next season. 



This is one evil against which they have to contend. If any 

 one can prescribe a remedy, he will do a great service to that 

 country. 



Just before I came on to this platform, some one remarked 

 that he supposed I was going to talk about the Mormon re- 

 ligion. I told him that was not in the programme, but, at the 

 same time, I could manage to throw in a few words in regard 

 to that. I do not believe in their social system which" grows 

 out of their religion, — I speak of that system now simply as 

 bearing upon this matter of industry, — I do not believe that 

 their social system is one calculated a't all to cause the people 

 to rise to a high state of civilization. I should not refer to it 

 in this connection, were it not to express my opinion on this 

 point. I think the great results I have seen there, and which 

 I have referred to here to-night, have been brought about in 

 spite of a religion that has little tendency to raise men up to a 

 high plane, and of a social system that in my opinion has a 

 tendency to lower men. I say that here as I would say it to 

 them ; although I do say that, in my opinion, they have been very 

 much abused, as they have been very much misrepresented. 

 The Mormons, as I have said, went there from persecution. 

 They were persecuted, undoubtedly, and many things that we 

 hear said about them, with reference to their conduct, with 

 reference to their government, arise from the fact that they went 

 there perfectly goaded to desperation. When men have been 

 driven out, — when they have seen their homes burned, when 

 they have seen their friends shot down, when they have been per- 

 secuted for their religion, when they have been, as it were, ban- 

 ished, the iron enters into their souls, and they will say and do a 

 great many things, which people on the outside, who know noth- 

 ing about the situation, think very hard. One intelligent man said 

 to me, " I came over that mountain barefooted, my feet bleed- 

 ing ; I had nothing to live upon, and I went down into that 

 valley and dug wild roots for months to live upon, and I am 

 ready to do that again, if need be." On all other subjects, that 

 man is just as intelligent as you or I, and a man who, on all 

 business matters, would talk as intelligently as any one. And 

 the man of whom I spoke as coming on with me, is building 



