STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 213 



citizen of the State. I oppose it because it will involve a needless 

 expenditure of money to establish it, and a much larger ex- 

 penditure of money to carry it on every year than will be re- 

 quired for doing the same work in the university already estab- 

 lished. I oppose it because it involves heavier taxes without 

 corresponding benefits. I oppose it because it is unnecessary and 

 if established will never accomplish what its supporters hope. 

 I oppose it finally because we are in the midst of an experiment 

 with the college of agriculture and it remains to be seen whether 

 or not we can meet both the wants and the demands of the farm- 

 ers. I have only to add that whenever it shall be proved that 

 some other arrangement than the present will be more beneficial 

 I for one shall heartily welcome the new arrangement. 



It is a noticeable fact that in one particular farmers are un- 

 like the persons engaged in most other occupations. While we 

 find trades unions of every kind carefully guarding against an 

 oversupply of laborers in their particular departments and so 

 against too many apprentices learning the trade, farmers, on the 

 other hand, seem to be anxious to swell the numbers in their own 

 ranks and to be fearful not that too many boys will become farm- 

 ers but that too few will do so. They seem to be annoyed that 

 any other occupations than farming should prove attractive to 

 farmers' boys. I do not quite understand the reason of this. It 

 seems to be more a matter of sensitive pride in their own occu- 

 pation than the result of any broad views of utility or of politi- 

 cal economy. But be that as it may, I shall regard it as a sad 

 day for the country when the ranks of the professions and of 

 trade and of manufacturing and of banking can no longer be 

 recruited from the sturdy and energetic and honest sons of farm- 

 ers in the country. The best blood in all lines of activities in 

 our large cities has come from the country and from the homes 

 of farmers. Long may it be so; and far distant be the day when 

 through any compulsion, social or physical, esoteric or exoteric, 

 the sons of farmers shall be shut up to an education purely agri- 

 cultural, and be forced, against their own taste and inclination, 

 to follow the occui)ation of their fathers. As the mingling of 

 nationalities and creeds and purposes and tastes helps the pro- 

 cess of assimilation in our national life, so the mixing of families 

 in different pursuits keeps all out of a rut, and adds to the life 

 and activity of the whole. When, then, farmers complain that 

 so many farmers' sons go into other pursuits than farming, they 

 complain of what is for the best good of all concerned. What 



