42 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



and all New England, and therefore for the good of our whole 

 country. Let us take hold of it as men, and do what we can in 

 our way for the promotion of this noble enterprise, for it is one 

 of the grandest the Commonwealth has ever inaugurated. Let 

 us see that it is so conducted as to secure to our posterity that 

 good which we here to-day hope they may enjoy. 



Allen W. Dodge, of Hamilton. The question which has been 

 put by the last speaker is one that has been put to me time 

 and time again by intelligent farmers ; "After you have given 

 our young men this superior education at the college, how are 

 you going to prevent them from quitting the farm ? " I heard 

 a man put it in this way the other day: " The moment you 

 educate a man, that moment he quits the farm ; and if you want 

 to keep the farmer at home, keep him in ignorance." I have 

 had that question put, as I say, again and again. It is a very 

 difficult question to answer. So long as other business pays 

 better, and farming is more profitable at the West than here, we 

 cannot expect, by the mere profits of farming, to keep our young 

 men on the farm. But there are other motives that come into 

 play. How do you get men to preach the gospel ? Every year 

 there are a large number of young men turned out from the 

 theological institutions of the country who enter that sacred 

 profession, and devote their lives, on very small salaries, to the 

 accomplishment of a good work. Why is it? It is because 

 they have a certain amount of enthusiasm and love for the work ; 

 they go into it from a conviction of duty ; and that enthusiasm 

 leads them to surmount all difficulties ; and money, from their 

 standpoint, looks like a very inferior object. So it is to a certain 

 extent in some other professions — in that of teaching, for 

 example. How many men labor as teachers through their lives, 

 who, if they went into counting-rooms or banks, could make 

 double the income they do from their profession as teachers. I 

 think the great requisite in a college of this kind, in order to 

 lead young men, after they have graduated, to go into farming, 

 is to inspire enthusiasm : and from what I have seen to-day of 

 the gentleman who has recently been elected to preside over the 

 institution which is now in an embryo condition, but which I 

 trusl will one day be born to be a living child, I think he is the 

 very man to inspire that enthusiasm. I know a little of farming. 

 I went on a farm from a profession, and it was a new world to 



