THIRTEENTH ANNUAL MEETING. 75 



I had to confess that I did not, neither could I tell what my 

 dinner was a month or a week ago. And then he added : "Those 

 dinners, even though forgotten, were necessary in order that 

 you should be alive and well now. My sermons, even though 

 forgotten, were needed and I had to do my best a year ago 

 that I might be able to do as well as I do now, for if I do 

 not do my best to-day, I cannot do better to-morrow." And 

 so, a farmer's home should be a little paradise on earth, and it 

 can become so, and I believe that it will be when he succeeds 

 in working out a logical plan for his farm and a reasonable 

 method of working it. He will have learned to make and use 

 plans as easily and comfortably as he reads and writes, and 

 the making of a plan will be as simple a matter as writing a 

 letter ; then he will have them in abundance, and will have them 

 as frequently as he makes a memorandum, and the more familiar 

 he is with them the more useful they will be to him. 



I cannot help, in closing, in giving voice to a little prophecy. 

 The plans of cities are receiving a great deal of attention, and 

 cities are being slowly remodelled to meet modern requirements, 

 and while many of the country roads are as well located, and 

 as beautiful as heart could wish, yet there are others which are 

 not logical in their layout, and impose as great a burden on the 

 farmer as the illogical city streets has upon the business man. 

 Then again, most farm lines are not the result of following 

 reasonable contours, and enclosing the lands which naturally go 

 together, but are usually the results of accidental ownerships 

 in the past, the wealth and poverty of other owners, and the 

 idiosyncrasies of the neighborhood. How much of this can be 

 changed for the better, I do not know, but as we have park 

 commissioners in cities^ so I believe the time will come when 

 there will be commissions appointed to guide the conserving 

 and preserving of whatsoever is beautiful in the country — 

 that iDeauty which belongs to no individual owner, but to every 

 one who has eyes to see ; and he who destroys the beautiful 

 destroys public property, even though he holds the title deed, 

 and he w^ho makes the beautiful more available, who adds to 

 it by making his grounds more beautiful, has added to the 

 public wealth, and has done the Creator as well as his neighbor 

 a service of even erreatcr benefit than that he himself will receive. 



