20 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan., 



appealed to the people of this whole nation. And it appealed 

 to them because high up in all the great positions of the coun- 

 try were men who knew that he had told the story correctly. • 



Now, it is the business, as it seems to me, of this Board of 

 Agriculture, under the statute creating it, to stimulate and 

 encourage these young men to stay upon the farms, not to go 

 out into the cities, not to go to New York or to come to Hart- 

 ford, but to stay right at home and develop the farms, which, 

 in many instances, are a family heritage for many generations 

 back. In order to do that you have got to do a great deal of 

 practical work, because a man's first business in this life is to 

 earn his bread and butter. In order to retain the boys upon the 

 farms we have got to teach them how to make farming pay. 

 In other words, you have got to teach farming intelligently, 

 and until that can be done, until the business of farming is a 

 paying proposition, your boys will go away from the farm to 

 the cities, simply because it is a question of earning a liveli- 

 hood. Now, this State Board of Agriculture is endowed with 

 a great many powers, and I hope in the future it will be en- 

 dowed with a great many more. It has an appropriation 

 annually, and I hope that that appropriation will be largely 

 increased, because I can see that with the intelligent work that 

 this Board is doing we are going to have a different impression 

 put upon this question of farming in Connecticut. No one can 

 tell the amount of good work you have done in improving 

 Connecticut farming. You have relieved the farms of Con- 

 necticut of numberless pests. You have provided for lectures 

 showing the best methods of farming, you have organized 

 farmers' clubs and farmers' organizations, and you have given 

 to the social life of our country communities a stimulus which 

 we cannot but feel must redound in great good and prove very 

 helpful in making the life of the farmer attractive. 



Now these powers that are given to you by the State of 

 course bring corresponding responsibility. I understand by the 

 statute you are required to hold at least one. meeting here in the 



