WINTER MEETING. 295 



homes in a givea area, and, also, by improved roads. Hence, roads have 

 not only a commercial value, but are great moral agents and promoters 

 •of happiness as well. 



The second condition that has hitherto been a great drawback to 

 farm life is the want of mind employment in immediate connection with 

 our business. The assumption has been that to be a successful farmer 

 or orchardist, one needed only good muscular development and a 

 dogged determination to work from early morn to dewy eve. Brute 

 force, main strength and awkwardness, with parsimonious economy, 

 whereby nearly all the finer pleasures of life have been denied, has 

 been pointed out as the only sure and feasible road to success in agri- 

 culture. Is it strange, then, that a young man whose whole being is 

 enthused by aspirations engendered by mental activities, should look 

 upon this dark picture of farm life with aversion ? Or that, contemplat- 

 ing its isolation on the one hand, its dull monotone drudgery on the 

 other, he should cut loose his moorings, go to the city where the con- 

 ditions are such as to gratify the cravings of his nature"? 



I heard Col. J. W. Judy, the great live stock auctioneer, once in a 

 -speech just before offering for sale a lot of Short-horn cattle, say: 

 *' These animals have a history. Buy them ; take them upon your farms 

 that your sons may handle them and may find in their history, in their 

 pedigrees, a chance for the exercise of mind activity, for it will require 

 intelligence, thought, to handle them and breed them properly." He 

 urged upon his audience the necessity of intelligence and thought in 

 -connection with every daily labor as a factor, not only in lightening 

 toil and giving it zest, but rendering farm life attractive. I am pleased 

 to note wonderful improvement along these lines. Facilities for inter- 

 <;our8e have largely improved ; the necessities for intercourse have 

 been more and more recognized, and in no department of farm life has 

 the advance been more marked and satisfactory than in horticulture. 



I have noticed, while engaged in the Farmers' Institute work, that 

 the men who are enthusiasts, who love their calling, whose minds are 

 active, who have thrown off' the lethargy so disastrously common in 

 farm life, are those who have exercised mind activity and enjoyed that 

 intercourse with their fellows which is " the soul of progress." Hence 

 when we learn of the existence of a horticultural society in any given 

 community where we are to hold a Farmers' Institute, we expect a good 

 attendance and interest, and our expectations are always realized. 



Recognizing these principles that enter into the make-up of the 

 character of youth, and I may say of older persons as well, it is just as 

 important to furnish wholesome mental food to go along with labor as 

 it is to furnish food for the body to prepare for that labor. 



