Vermont Dairymen's Association. 59 



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the success of our friends and ourselves by the amount of evil 

 root collected and at hand. 



Granted that the possession of money is essential to our 

 needs and desires, granted that the struggle to accumulate 

 sufficient wealth against the time of need or for those who are 

 to come after us is a praiseworthy object, the fact still remains 

 that the richest men are not always the most successful or the 

 happiest for there are essentials to happiness that money cannot 

 buy but which are within the reach of any one and every one 

 who will cultivate a habit of living in touch with all things that 

 make life worth living. Such a man as this is a happy man, and 

 he cannot help but shed a happy influence on all he meets. When 

 he is called from this life, although he will leave but little be- 

 hind him by way of actual wealth, it will be said of him : "He 

 left it all ; he took nothing with him." 



There is another idea abroad, that only through wealth can 

 we attain to high official or professional positions and thereby 

 gain an entrance into what is known as "Society." It should 

 be a matter of congratulation that the prizes are so few and that 

 so few of us have the necessary qualifications to aspire to these 

 high places that we can afford to turn to humbler things on 

 which to build our ideas of success and our hopes of happiness. 



The speaker here related an interesting story of J. Howard 

 Hale, the well known peach king of the Connecticut Valley, and 

 continuing said: 



And who shall say that J. Howard Hale is not a successful 

 man. A poor boy, born on the farm, he finds himself today in 

 the prime of life, by no means a rich man. but a man with a world 

 wide reputation as the largest and most successful peach grower 

 on earth, and the originator of scores of varieties of delicious 

 fruits that will make his name remembered when those of Sen- 

 ator Cash and Congressman Graft shall have perished from the 

 earth. And, ladies,, don't you think that his wife is an excellent 

 variety of "Hale's Peach?" 



Every man and woman owes a duty to society, for it is by 

 association with our fellowmen that we derive most of our bene- 

 fits and our pleasures. So, ever remembering that it is from 

 without rather than from within that we draw nearly every sweet 

 and wholesome thing, we have no right to hide our own talents 

 from others. One of the best things for a man to invest in is 

 the good will of his fellows. 



As to "Society" as it is known to the idle rich, if success and 

 happiness depend upon a life of luxurious ease,, frivolity, and 

 superficiality with a background of sham, scandal and divorce 

 proceedings, then let us of the so-called "middle class" bow our 

 heads in humbleness of heart for most of us will never be happy. 



