Vermont Dairymen's Association. 49 



and better as they grow older. When they go away to boarding 

 school, or to college, they are educated in a measure away from 

 home, the best place on earth. 



We sometimes think that when there is a wedding in the 

 neighborhood, that there has not been an even exchange of valua- 

 tion. It reminds me of a little verse I read the other day : 



"They took worlds of pains in trying well to raise her. 



She stands the fine fruition of their plans. 

 At a price unprecedented they appraised her. 



But she's gone and given herself to that young man. 



But never mind ; his mother thinks he's priceless. 



His father sat up nights to make him good. 

 She will have him for her own, fine, fresh and viceless. 



Things sometimes really work out as they should." 



These are conditions that arise in many of the neighbor- 

 hoods. The world is improving, and its people are not only 

 growing more intelligent but better all the time, and better look- 

 ing also. 



At the Grange fair up in East Hardwick last fall, we offered 

 a prize for the handsomest baby under one year of age, and 

 another for the next handsomest ; a prize for the largest and most 

 numerous family under ten years old, and also for the same 

 number, taking them by weight. One family won a big prize, — 

 the father and mother not quite forty years old, and eleven chil- 

 dren in the photograph, and you couldn't tell which was the 

 oldest and which the youngest. There were twenty-five or more 

 babies, and they were all handsome. Each mother, of course, 

 thought hers was the handsomest. A little girl took the first 

 prize and a litle boy the second. But what I was going to say 

 about the improvement of the race in Vermont was this ; that 

 when we came to look back over two generations, we found that 

 the grandfathers of those two handsomest babies were two of 

 the homeliest men in that section of the country. So I think it is 

 safe to say that we are improving here in Vermont. 



With the inspiration of the W^oman's Auxiliary, with the 

 united effort of the Vermont Dairymen's Association, we can 

 instruct the world in making butter. We should remember that 

 we dwell in goodly places, that we have a rich heritage, and that 

 the onlv reason why we farmers are not above instead of on a 

 level with the professional world is because we have been lower- 

 ing our occupation, because we have said that farming didn't 

 pay. Now, farming does pay. One can get more out of life 

 on a farm if one don't get a dollar than in some places where a 



