208 BOARD OP AGRICULTURE. [Jan., 



is the formal kind of notice such a matter gets from the fine print 

 of a newspaper : 



The board of commissioners, of the last season, deemed it wise to 

 obtain the fee simple of the entire low ground before taking any steps 

 towards a connection. The matter was placed in the hands of a com- 

 mittee of the board, of which Mr. was the acting chairman. He 



has arranged with thirteen of the owners, purchasing 211 acres out of 

 the 227 needed, at a price averaging about $7 per acre, exclusive of the 

 standing wood on the same. The remaining 16 acres, owned by three dif- 

 ferent parties, are in process of being taken by the apjiraisal of commis- 

 sioners appointed by a judge of the sujireme court. 



Of the actual facts here hinted at I know nothing. The parties 

 may have been abundantly satisfied with seven dollars per acre for 

 anything I have heard to the contrary. Rural speculators may 

 have bought the condemned tracts for less money and so made 

 something out of the trade. But I do know that the student of 

 national life and decay will have to grope among such low-down 

 details to find out what is the matter, or this nation and this civil- 

 ization will only blaze anew the old road to ruin that so many 

 other nations, careless of the common people — except to keep them 

 in ignorance — have followed. 



For remedies I would prescribe — what ? Nothing new — except, 

 possibly, a stricter honesty in dealing with the soil, where all dis- 

 honesty and robbery begins — more attention to honest farming 

 and honest home manufactures. Some may believe in legal rem- 

 edies — more laws. I have very little faith in law except as it is 

 backed by the public mind. Laws that have to be enforced by 

 stealth, like the flowage law, do no great harm to any but the 

 stealthy society that uses them. I believe our best manufacturers 

 are ashamed of it; but I wouldn't give a cent to have farmers get 

 on their ^arm boots and kick it oS the statute books. We don't 

 want farm law nor manufacturing law, but laws so just and reason- 

 able that every one, high and low, must respect and obey them. 

 It scared me last year to hear Prof. Beal tell how the farmers of 

 Michigan could get anything they asked of their legislature. I 

 am afraid the farmers of the Peninsula State will over-reach them- 

 selves as our mill-men did in their flowage act. Any class dipping 

 its fingers too deep in the public pot leads surely to excess the 

 other way. Let the farmers of Connecticut beware of "legal" 

 temptation. 



Are we manufacturing very queer notions of law and justice 



