158 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE Off. Due. 



The CHAIR: We shall be glad to hear ffrom Mr. Seeds, and he will 

 please come forward. 



MR SEEDS: Mr. Chairman, I do not think it is altogether fair 

 to bring a man out here into this meeting just on the spur of the 

 moment, just the moment he comes into the hall. I don't know any- 

 thing about the program, or anything that has been done here this 

 afternoon. I am pleased to meet with you; I am always pleased to 

 meet with the farmers, and with all the people interested in agricul- 

 ture. Since I live on a farm and since I am interested in agricul- 

 ture, I want to meet with the people who are interested along the 

 same lines, because as "iron sharpeneth iron," so we will be benefited 

 by meeting with the people interested in the same calling. If I was 

 to move off my farm to-morrow and go to the State of Illinois, and 

 engage in some other line of work, I would turn my back on the 

 people engaged in agriculture and go and meet with the men engaged 

 in my line of work. If we sat on a locomotive, I would meet with 

 the men who run locomotives. But I am here to-day because I am 

 interested and you are all interested in the promotion of the in- 

 terests of agriculture, because I believe I shall be benefited by the 

 association, and that my calling will be benefited. 



I believe in looking ahead and never looking behind. If I have got 

 to pay a note that I have endorsed for a man, after I pay it I never 

 think about it. I am always looking into the future and always keep 

 ing my eyes towards the sun, because then I know that the shadow 

 will fall behind me. Ever since the time when the world was brought 

 into existence men have been thinking about new things, and reach- 

 ing out after new and improved methods. They have been saying 

 that this won't do, and that won't do at all; we must have something 

 better, and so the world continues to move on. It has been so from 

 the time that Adam went into the Garden of Eden up to the present 

 time, and the mighty steamship that now crosses the ocean has been 

 a development from the little boat originally constructed by Robert 

 Fulton. When Fulton was building that steamboat, he had a rich 

 uncle who had money to burn, and the uncle told him it wouldn't do. 

 but Robert Fulton worked on; he never ceased his efforts and after 

 his little steamboat was completed and he pushed it out into the 

 Hudson River, and rang the bell to go ahead, there was trouble in 

 in that steamboat and it wouldn't move, and his uncle stood on the 

 bank and said, "I told you it wouldn't go; it will never go." But 

 Robert was not discouraged. He took his wrenches and his tools, 

 and he did this and he did that, he adjusted this bolt and that screw, 

 he did a few things that he thought necessary, and then he pulled 

 the throttle open, and his little steamboat moved on, and his old uncle 

 stood on the bank and shouted after him and said, "You'll never get 

 it stopped, you'll never get it stopped!" This is the way things have 



