52 Thirty-Fifth Annual Hepobt of THfi 



boys and girls need a little discipline. I need not say that all 

 of us need discipline very much. I hear fathers and mothers say 

 they want their boys and girls to have a better time than they had. 

 I don't know as I want my boys and girls to have any better 

 time than I did. I have always had a good time and always mean 

 to as long as I live. First, you want health, you want health and 

 a clear conscience, something to eat and you will be all right. 

 Bring up the boys and girls to get what there is in life, to help 

 lift the standard of the farm; that the farmer is just as good as 

 somebody else and a little better, if the other fellow does not 

 behave as well as the farmer does. One reason we do not take 

 pride in our occupation is the professional man selects something 

 he. likes for his life work. He educates himself for it until he 

 understands in a measure his business and thinks it is the very 

 best one in the world. He goes into it but he fails in about 

 seventy-five cases out of a hundred. 



The farmer must select something he likes first, then edu- 

 cate himself in it and he has got to succeed, there is but very 

 little doubt about that,, but at the same time he has got to have 

 his health and he has got to be happy and contented with his 

 surroundings. 



The professional man, as I have said adds dignity to his 

 profession because he is always speaking well of it ; we lower 

 our occupation by saying so many times that farming don't pay. 

 It does not pay us as it should because we do not realize any 

 pay but a pay in dollars and cents. Take all those things into 

 consideration, take your house and make it pleasant and cheer- 

 ful for the dear ones in it, make it neat and well kept on the 

 outside and around the yard, enjoy your farm and your work 

 and make your boys and girls enjoy it too. We have lowered 

 the value of farms in Vermont by saying that farming did not 

 pay. You do not hear professional men, mechanics or merchants 

 say their business does not pay ; they would almost even tell a lie 

 before they would say it, and how is it that we are willing to 

 say it does not pay even when it does? 



I know a little town in the State of Vermont where you 

 would not find a man with a farm who would say that farming 

 pays. They do not mean to tell a wrong story about it and yet 

 they say farming does not pay, but they are building better 

 houses and they are building better barns, they are driving better 

 horses, riding in better sleighs and buggies ; their wives dress 

 better and their boys and girls are better educated, and yet they 

 say farming does not pay. 



In that town they say they are milking more cows than they 

 ever did before ; the lister tells me that twelve years ago there 

 was only about eight or ten thousand dollars in that town held 



