I06 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan., 



world know that he has something that is worth something, 

 that there is a pedigree in it, and that it is something that other 

 people want. That man advertises his goods. Another is 

 perhaps skilled in some particular line. If he is a man of that 

 type he advertises his skill. He lets himself be known, and 

 from the day of Noah down to the present time it has been 

 justly recognized that skill is worth more than pride. It has 

 always been so and always will be so. 



Another thing that our little friend, the hen, teaches us, 

 and that is to stick to one thing. The only hen that I ever 

 heard of that did not do that was a hen in Texas. This hen 

 was set upon sixteen first-class eggs. The eggs were placed 

 in a basket and put in a room. She sat upon the eggs until 

 the nineteenth day. She knew that under her were eggs that 

 were about to hatch, and if those eggs did hatch well that she 

 was going to be the proud mother of those chicks. On the 

 nineteenth da}^ happened what I want to call your attention to, 

 the point of my story. The boys on the farm filled up a 

 crate with eggs which they were going to take down to the 

 market, and they put the crate down near the hen. The old 

 hen saw the crate and she saw the eggs. She said to herself, 

 " There are hundreds of eggs in that crate. What a fool I 

 am to sit on these when I can sit on those and raise a much 

 bigger family. What a fool I am to waste my energies here 

 on this poor little lot when I can hatch so many more. Why 

 should I waste my energy? I am a fool." I am sorry to call 

 my friend a fool, but that poor fool came down off that nest 

 and got up on to that crate and spread out her wings and there 

 she sat all through the night. Of course, all of the sixteen 

 eggs in the nest that she had been sitting upon spoiled. She 

 lost her opportunity because she did not attend to business. 

 She tried in vain to warm up the crate. She did not stick to 

 one thing, and in consequence lost everything. Now my 

 friends, is there anybody here in this audience who will say to 

 himself, that applies to me? I am sure there is someone here 

 to whom that does apply. I do not know that I ever saw an 

 audience in my life but what contained possibly two or three 

 people who would take that application home, who would 

 recognize a defect in their own make-up, and resolve to stick 

 hereafter to small things, and do them well. That is the only 

 way to acomplish results. Whatever you have to do stick to 



