86 VERMONT AGRICULTURAL REPC-T. 



a few more mowers might be bought. Nothing will quicken 

 town improvement more than the breaking out of a lawn 

 adornment craze ; it will soon extend to cleaning up fence 

 corners, taking the slack out of loose wires; many a housewife 

 will take time to plant flowers about the door and cannas will 

 supersede the burdocks. 



Some of our duties have been touched upon in this paper, 

 others might be mentioned, but many of them suggest them- 

 selves. We are largely engaged in discussing just now how 

 to make more money, but there is a broader question for the 

 farmers to study today. Our citizenship and what it stands 

 for is broader and longer and should occupy more of our time. 

 The farmer stands not only as the one who is to add realty 

 wealth to this country, but he stands today, as never before, 

 the guardian of the destinies of the countiy at large ; he 

 stands, to a large extent, as arbitrator of the moral and polit- 

 ical conscience of the people ; he is the grand jury to whom is 

 referred year by year the questions that affect not only you 

 and me but the whole population ; thus he becomes the moral 

 tribunal of the nation. Are we as farmers prepared to well 

 decide these questions? Farmers' institutes and similar meet- 

 ings are doing more to bring about this desirable state of 

 affairs, to foster a better understanding and expand the rela- 

 tions that we bear to each other and the Republic in general, 

 than anything that has happened to us in the course of our 

 lives. May we know our duty and the obligations devolving 

 upon us as citizens and farmers and act well upon them ; may 

 we become a co-operative power for good and benign influences 

 and have the satisfaction of knowing that we, in doing our 

 part, have made our homes, the people about us and the town 

 better and brighter, our social and moral life stronger, more 

 symmetrical and complete with good deeds ; and though few 

 of us may accomplish deeds that shall win earthly fame, yet 

 for the doing and faltering not may we some day hear the 

 words, "Well done — thou hast been faithful over a few 

 things," from the kindest voice in all the universe and gain a 

 continuing peace that shall abide when the earth itself shall 

 have become the dust of the ages. 



