26 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan., 



There were some good regiments of people who had movable 

 property, of every kind or nature, some that had no property 

 at all, and some bad ones ; but regiments recruited from the 

 land were recruited from the boys who had a stake in the 

 country. The landowner, whatever the difficulties under which 

 he labors, has a stake in the country. He has to pay his taxes. 

 He may get his valuation down as low as he can, and some- 

 times he will go very far to get his valuation down, but his 

 land cannot run away. Some share of the burden it has got 

 to pay. The landowner feels that he has an interest in that 

 continuity of law which makes the land his and not somebody 

 else's, and while he may want to have certain laws changed, 

 and may think, rightly or wrongly, that the existing law is 

 hard on him, and does too much for the other fellow never- 

 theless, when it comes to an issue between law and no law, 

 the landowner, the country landowner, is bound to be on the 

 side of law. As the owner of property which cannot be moved 

 and that will not in general change in value from day to day, 

 he becomes a conservative force. 



Now I do not suppose that there was ever more need of 

 conservative force in the country than there is today. With 

 the dazzling and meteoric changes of industry and of com- 

 merce and of our views of life in general, the forces which we 

 call progressive, and which may prove under certain circum- 

 stances destructive, tend to get too much headway, and any- 

 thing that will make a man realize that he is a part of the com- 

 munity, anything that can make the one who labors with his 

 hands nevertheless feel that he has a stake in the country, is 

 going to be a force on the right side. It may be a force, but 

 it is a force which at the same time is very much needed. 

 Here, then, is another way in which the University and the 

 Agricultural Association may well join hands as persons work- 

 ing toward a common end. We, too, feel the preeminent need 

 of training men to see their duty as members of a community. 

 We, too, feel the need of teaching people that the woric of 



