102 STATE rOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



The spirit of iniprovemont has at the same time entered the household ami 

 taken her scat, not on the time-honored domestic hearth b}- the cheerful fire, 

 but on the carpet by the coal stove or register. The good wile v>\\o used to 

 broil her meat and her face at the same time over the open fire, can now keep 

 comwirativel}' cool over the stove, and then do the honors of her table with a 

 placm countenance. The weekly washing, the dread of the women and the 

 terror of the men, is now by machinery made relatively pastime, and the 

 wringing no longer dislocates the fingers, but is done with wheels and cogs. 

 The sewing, the darning, and the knitting needles have lost their high stations 

 and nearly outlived their usefulness. The old wooden trencher and the gourd 

 ladle are only seen at centennial exhibitions. Tiic sjiinning wheels, big and 

 little, with the reel and hand loom, arc now out of date. 



Other changes affecting the interests of the race, if not their welfare, have in 

 the same time been going on. Tlie improvements in domestic animals, the in- 

 troduction of the Shorthorns, Devons, and Jerseys, the Morgans, Percherons, and 

 Clydesdales, tlie Berkshircs, Chcsters, and Essex, the ;^[eriuos, Cotswolds, and 

 Southdowns, the Bramalis, Dominiques, and Cochins, have given in the Jiorse 

 more strength and speed; in the bovines more beef, butter, and cheese; in the 

 sheep more mutton and wool : in the sv.'ine more pork for the feed, and in tlie 

 poultry more ilesh and eggs. 



And now, when we contrast the present with the past, we raise the question 

 cui bono? Are we better off? Are we more happy? AVe are surely more wise, 

 we live longer, more easily raise the food we eat ; we are more intellectual, we 

 enjoy pleasure with a keener zest, and we understand much that was once 

 mysterious ; but all this does not show that we make the most of our opportuni- 

 ties. Are we really more happy than our forefathers of a hundred years ago? 

 Do you men of three score sec in the present generation of young folks more 

 contentment than you enjoyed fifty years ago? and if you do not, please answer 

 the f[uestion if you can, why is this so? 



I charge you and myself with the fault. We are extravagant, we lay out too 

 much in fine carriages, we build too expensive houses, buy too costly furniture ; 

 we indulge in too much style, we do not know enough, we must know more, we 

 have got to know more ; the world moves and wo have got to move witii it or 

 be left behind ; we must furnish our houses with less upholstery and more books, 

 less china-ware and more newspapers. We must know more of geology to teach 

 us how to manage peculiar soils, more of climatology to teach us Avhat aspects 

 are best for certain plants and fruits, more of entomology or we shall be ruined by 

 insects, and all we can ever know of botany, physiology, and hygiene, will surely 

 come into play, and cannot fail to add to our enjoyments. Chemistry lias been 

 awfully neglected in our education, not so much that wliich relates to metals as 

 that of animals and vegetables; to know what elements we eat and what we eat 

 them for, what the plant and fruit is made of, and where it gets it. Do you 

 ask how is the farmer or the fruit grower to learn all this? Why, just as he 

 learns everything else. Do you say he has no time for study? lie has Inore 

 time than any other mortal man. Do you ask v/ho is to teach him? lie has 

 in himself, the best and most faithful teacher in the world ; he has learned to 

 read, let him read. 



I verily believe that we might enjoy life better than we do if we only lived 

 right. I don't believe in miserly habits; a man should indulge his own and 

 his family's taste for superfiuities as far as he can afford it, with prudence and 

 forethought, but he should not indulge ii\ luxuries because his neighbor does, 



