FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 205 



is prepared to take his place in tlie front rank, and each day's experience adds 

 value to his services. What is true of the physician is true of the teacher, the 

 minister, the farmer, and of every profession in life. And these institutes, or 

 farmers' meetings, are a recognition of the benefits of association, and are to 

 the farmer what medical institutes are to the physician, and teachers' institutes 

 to the teacher. 



One man has been successful in raising wheat; he comes here and tells of 

 his soil and how he prepares it; the kind and quantity of seed; the time of 

 seeding; the time and manner of harvesting and threshing; the kind and 

 quantity of fertilizers, if any, he uses; and we compare his methods with our 

 own ; see where we have 'erred and use the light of liis experience to guide us 

 in the future. Another gives his experience in raising corn ; another in rais- 

 ing oats, barley, or potatoes; and we are each taught by the other, and go to 

 our homes not only better farmers but broader and better men, having learned 

 one of the most important lessons of life: How to make the knowledge of 

 those around us contribute to our own pleasure and profit. 



These institutes are a recognition of another fact — that success in farming 

 does not wholly depend upon unremitting physical labor, but like success in 

 every other profession or pursuit in life, upon work guided by intelligence. 

 And in order that this intelligence shall come in contact with and be 

 instructed by the best thought and the best practice of his time, in addition to 

 these associations each farmer needs and must have at least one good paper 

 devoted to agriculture and its collateral sciences. He can no more afford to 

 do without it than the physician, the minister, or ihe teacher without his. 



But I do not by any means disparage work. This is indeed a busy world; 

 work is required at the hands of every man that succeeds in it. I know of no 

 profession that offers success to its votaries on any other condition than as the 

 reward of hard work. The man who starts out with only his ax and a wife 

 and attempts to hew for himself a home from the forest, has many hard days' 

 work before him before he reaches that competency that shall afford him 

 comfort and ease in the down-hill journey of life. But he has evenings at 

 home with his family, his books, and his papers. He has nights of repose^ 

 and more than all, he has that sense of security that, comes of a knowledge 

 that his property is reasonably secure from accidents, and that each hour 

 while he sleeps adds to its growth and value. 



And again these institutes are evidence that the farmer is asserting for him- 

 self and his family that place in society to which he is justly entitled as a 

 member of the oldest and most honorable profession among men. No, not 

 the most honorable. For every useful profession is alike honorable. Useful 

 labor is honorable everywhere, and in every man and woman. There is nO' 

 honor, nor can there be, in idleness; it is simply rust or dry rot. No profes- 

 sion or pursuit in life can honor its members; the member must honor and 

 dignify the profession ; and society everywhere will respect the man who 

 respects himself and honors his profession. 



By meeting together in these institutes and listening to the experience of 

 each other and to the voice of science as it recounts its triumphs won for your 

 profession from year to year ; giving you the results of experiments that, as 

 individuals, you never could have made; compelling the forces of nature to 

 do your bidding and to work for you, you dignify farming by elevating it to 

 its place among the learned professions. Here, at these meetings, your 

 agricultural college, the child of your fostering care and the pride of the 

 State, brings back to you in the shape of well established truths, results of 



