232 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



except by the most costly, but real farm homes unexcelled by any 

 other county of the State. And more than that, you occupy one of 

 Nature's beauty spots in Pennsylvania where we are holding this 

 meeting; the largest inland water of the State is here, beautiful in 

 all its surroundings and a piece of water of utility as well, where 

 we can come from all the counties and all parts of eastern Ohio 

 and western Pennsylvania, and where the teeming multitudes in 

 our cities seek constantly for a place of wholesome recreation. Here, 

 at Conneaut, is one of those beauty spots that Nature has bestowed 

 upon you for your benefit and for the benefit and uplifting of man- 

 kind. 



Now, my friends, what should we say of the outlook? Agri- 

 culture — what is it? What does it represent to-day? Do you not 

 know that it has a broader horizon, it has a brighter prospect than 

 ever before in its history? Do you not know that every thinking man 

 and woman to-day in this country of ours is thinking and writing 

 and talking about the farm and farm life? What does that mean? 

 Some of these Associations have undertaken, even though they exist 

 in cities and towns, the task of giving us farmers an uplift. We 

 are pleased with the thought. We are pleased with the knowledge, 

 that at last the whole world has come to its proper senses and 

 that it is admitted and proclaimed that the occupation that we rep- 

 resent here to-day is the one great occupation upon which all man- 

 kind, all trades, all industries and pursuits must look for their own 

 upbuilding. Does that, my friends, give you any conception of the 

 vast responsibilities that rest upon you and me and every man 

 and every woman who cultivates a foot of God's earth? 



What are some of our responsibilities? I should say that the 

 man who is year by year cultivating that acre and not improving 

 its productive power and force is not living up to his divine com- 

 mission. The man upon one of God's acres here to-day in Penn- 

 sylvania that is not increasing its powers is in some sense robbing 

 God's earth; and we are here to-day, my friends, to devise ways 

 and means by which we may magnify the powers of the acre. We 

 are here for greater things than even that. The improvement of 

 the soil comes first of course. Then there may come another im- 

 provement; the greatest improvement that can come to the farmer 

 life of Pennsylvania, is to improve the social, the educational, and, if 

 you will, the spiritual life upon the farm. What are the agencies? 

 The school. What should it be? When I say the school, I mean 

 that school that you and I attended when we were boys and girls. 

 I mean that country school and that country schoolhouse. Do you 

 know that more depends this day and age and generation in which 

 we live, upon the mental and moral equipment of that boy and 

 girl than any other one thing that you can name? I sometimes 

 think that we have gone to a little extreme in the direction of look- 

 ing after the animals on the farm and the crops on the farm and 

 the disposition of the same — ;that we went a little too far, further 

 than we have gone in looking after the conditions of the school- 

 house and equipment of that school and the preparation of our 

 children and their equipment to fight the great battles of life as 

 they will be called upon to meet them. 



Then there is that other thought; the social side of our lives. We 

 farmers, amongst all the other occupations and businesses of life, 

 live our lives in a certain measure separate, as it were, the one from 



