50 Thirty-Sixth Annual Report of the 



thousand may be earned. Farmers are successful, as a rule, if 

 they understand farming as an occupation and do their best. 



There is a little town up in the north part of the State where 

 the folks are always saying that farming doesn't pay, — and you 

 know that about the first of April when the listers come around, 

 it is a time when folks feel poor. The town is paying heavy 

 taxes ; it bonded years ago for a railroad. Everybody is attend- 

 ing to the dairy and to maple sugar making and is growing a 

 few potatoes for a market ; but you can't find a man in town 

 that says he is making a dollar ; and they are apparently honest 

 men. Yet the chairman of the listers tells me that whereas ten 

 years ago there was only ten thousand dollars in Savings banks, 

 there is now seventy thousand dollars ; and yet you cannot find 

 a man that has made a dollar. These men are all farmers and 

 dairymen ; they are driving better horses, their wives get a new 

 hat five or six times a year, their houses are better painted, 

 they have better barns, their children are being educated ; and 

 yet farming didn't pay. 



What is there of life better than health, happiness, pleasant 

 family associations, lots of sunshine and of comfort upon a 

 farm? Those who go to the great cities are glad to come back 

 to Vermont to get a little recreation and better health, so as to 

 go back again for another year. We have it all the year, my 

 friends. Who would ask for a better place than Vermont has 

 been for the past two months, even in what we call a Vermont 

 winter, — beautiful weather, to drive in one's sleigh or buggy, 

 just enough frost in the air to make you feel comfortable. Of 

 course we have to learn to chop wood, but that is healthful exer- 

 cise, the best thing in the world for a dyspeptic. It uses muscles 

 which get used no other way. And then it is very healthful to 

 milk the cows. I was in a farmer's barn the other day. He has 

 a large dairy and he likes to milk cows. He milks fifteen or 

 twenty or so ; but he doesn't like to work harder than it is neces- 

 sary. I noticed that he had a gasoline engine beside the door. 

 All he has got to do is to pull a rope that sets the gasoline engine 

 to work and it does the rest. If you use machinery aright, my 

 friends, farming is nothing but play. You may get into trouble 

 a little bit with the hired man, and it is sometimes difficult to get 

 a hired maid, but if you have a gasoline engine, or a few of 

 these things, you are all right. 



Mrs. LePage : — Our farm homes should be the ideal homes 

 of our land. We have with us this evening a lady who will 

 tell us how to make them so. I take great pleasure in introducing 

 Mrs. Addie Howie, a successful farmer of Wisconsin, 



