2.2 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE, [Jan., 



President Arthur T. Hadley. Mr. Chairman and Ladies 

 and Gentlemen: When I was down for an address at 11.30, 

 I find it a Httle surprising to be all introduced at 11. 15. I 

 knew that there was something about farming which incul- 

 cated habits of promptitude, but I never supposed that the in- 

 fluence of agricultural science was so great that it made people 

 do everything fifteen minutes ahead of time. (Applause.) 

 Coming in out of the street without a written manuscript, and 

 with only my very informal notes, my first impulse is to say to 

 your secretary, " Oh, Mr. Brown, this is so sudden." 



And when I saw the programme and noticed that I was 

 down for an address, it seemed to be making a good deal out 

 of very little, I offered to give a few words of hearty wel- 

 come, and this on your programme expands into an address. 

 I can only account for the change by the fact that in so many 

 parts of Connecticut the farmers, if they are to make a living 

 at all, have to make a great deal out of very unpromising 

 material. What I have to say cannot be called exactly an 

 address. There was a man who wrote a book recently, entitled 

 "Charles Dickens. An Appreciation." This is an apprecia- 

 tion rather than an address, for I have spent seven summers 

 on a hilltop in the northern part of Fairfield County, on ground 

 which by hard labor seven days in the week — with apologies 

 to Dr. Phillips — by hard labor seven days in the week is 

 made into the semblance of a farm, and if anybody appreciates 

 what agriculture in Connecticut has to overcome, and what 

 it has overcome by the aid of hard work and intelligent direc- 

 tion, I think I ought to be able to appreciate it. Why, the man 

 who tries to make a farm out of a Fairfield County hilltop has 

 a great deal harder job than President Roosevelt. For in- 

 stance, for the variety of difiiculty for constant effort to over- 

 come different obstacles the conditions of some of our Con- 

 necticut farms make the combination of a regiment of negro 

 troops, a diplomat's wife, and a Panama Canal seem ridicu- 

 lously easy. Possibly some of you heard a lecture that was 



