FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 49 



Good luck, a term much used in farming communities, but not always 

 correctly defined, is nothing more than good management, and such 

 meetings as these that you are about to hold are of great value not only to 

 the country, but to the cities and towns of the State. They assist in the 

 development of knowledge; teach us how to care for the stock, that it 

 may be properly housed, better and more economically fed; to avoid the 

 waste of coarse fodder raised on the farm land, and which otherwise 

 simply produces an unpleasant sight for the eye; that we must raise more 

 and finer fruits, marketed in packages nicely put up, so that they will 

 show to the best advantage and secure the best market prices. Meet- 

 ings of this kind are productive of great good. We think more of our 

 neighbors, because we know them better, and farmers are more often 

 called upon to lend a helping hand to their neighbors than others, and 

 this gives them the advantage of the greatest good there is in life. 



The ladies, God bless them, will have no small part in this meeting, 

 and they will attend to their part thoroughly, and if the instructions here 

 given about lightening the labors of the wives and daughters are going 

 to help to make the home life pleasanter and happier, great good will 

 have been accomplished. 



ADDRESS. 



GOV. JOHN T. RICH. 



I am disposed to talk to you tonight about our State government. It 

 is a matter in which you are all interested, and while in many respects 

 it is of the utmost importance to every man, woman, and child in the 

 State, yet its effects are of such a character that unless your attention is 

 called to it, you would never know we had a government, except for the 

 tax collector who calls once a year and asks contribution to its support. 



It is a fair question in these times, when everyone's income is being 

 reduced, and everyone is looking for some means of curtailing expenses, 

 to ask whether this State government of ours is really w^orth what it 

 costs. 



In the first place, it costs on the average throughout the State, about 

 one-tenth of your aggregate taxes. You who live in a township where 

 taxes are light and you are not paying a high county tax, and your school 

 taxes are light, will find that it is a good deal more. In other places 

 where taxes are high you will find it considerably less. This year the 

 State tax is 2| mills upon the assessed valuation of the State, and 

 the average taxes throughout the State are just about ten times that, or 

 2f per cent. Your taxes on the average are about two millions of 

 dollars per year; they vary, from time to time, from one and one-half 

 millions, to this year, three millions. One time with another, you may 

 not expect in the near future to have taxes less than about an aggregate 

 of two million dollars a year, unless, as has been done in the past, some 

 of the expenses are carried over for the future, which is the reason your 

 taxes are higher this year than in other legislative years. Appropria- 

 tions are no larger than repeatedly before. 



