LIVE STOCK BREEDERS. 75 



Now, when I think over my Hfe, I can see great changes that have 

 been wrought in the methods of farming and the whole agricultural 

 system. It seems to me that notwithstanding the lack of interest so 

 perplexing, we find wonderful and tremendous progress has been made. 

 Take stock raising — nowhere, in no line of business has there been such 

 wonderful advance made, such remarkable progress. I remember as a 

 boy, we used to raise hogs and cattle — it was my principal business — that 

 is they grew, we call it raising them. I remember when the time came 

 for getting the hogs to market, it required about three boys and a dog 

 usually to each hog in order to keep the procession in line, and often a 

 drove of fifty or sixty hogs strung out over ten miles of road. And the 

 pigs — I am not sure that it ever happened, but I think I came near to 

 resorting to that practice of helping to tie knots in their tails to keep them 

 in the pen. The idea has gradually gotten into the people's hearts and 

 heads that it is best to raise good stock, the very best possible. Among 

 those lines the greatest progress has been made. 



A meeting of this kind ought to have attracted every farmer from 

 Greene county. Representative men from over the State, from other 

 states, are here to discuss the great questions in which we are all inter- 

 ested, questions that underlie the prosperity and the advancement of the 

 whole country. 



There is another suggestion which has occurred to me. It is a bad 

 sign of the times which ought to be changed, ought to be eradicated in 

 some way, the teaching ought to be in the opposite direction. So many 

 men and boys now who get a common school education feel at once that 

 they are disqualified for farm life, and break for the city and town ottice. 

 That I think is the course of most of the American people. So many, 

 both boys and girls, feel that the great object in life is to get some kind of 

 of^cial position. Nothing better offered, they will take a clerkship. 

 \^ery often you find boys leaving the farm, coming to town trying to get 

 a job in county offices, or a clerkship in the government employ, and in 

 my judgment a greater curse, a greater misfortune never could possibly 

 liave happened to an energetic live boy. I regret to see a young man 

 leave the open air, and the fields, and seek a position of that kind simplv 

 you might say blotting out his life and his usefulness. It destroys his 

 independence. If a young man could see the end as he will see it later, 

 he would realize it. He covets a county clerkship, the office of recorder, 

 Congressman or representative — some place where he can draw a specific 

 salary. It seems to be the goal and ideal of the average young man to- 

 day. He does not realize that the person who gives him that job to-day 

 can kick him out to-morrow. The man who gives him that position is 

 himself liable to be kicked out. If he succeeds in holding it a number 



