NINETEENTH ANNUAL MEETING. 91 



Agriculture, Mr. Ellsworth, and I have great pleasure in call- 

 ing upon him at this time to address you. 



Mr. J. Lewis Ellsworth : Mr. Toastmaster, Mr. Pres- 

 ident, Ladies and Gentlemen : Your Toastmaster has start- 

 ed my speech for me, and so I will begin where he left off 

 by saying that I am delighted to be here and glad to meet 

 your people. I know how you live down here now. I have 

 been here before, but my visit was hurried. I did not stay. 

 I did not have an opportunity to observe you very closely. 

 To-night I have learned something about you. I feel that 

 you live through taking a long time to eat. I suppose that 

 is the way you do every day. It is quite different from what 

 it used to be in Connecticut. I remember a story that I 

 heard of a Connecticut man who was very careful to make 

 everything come out square, and make a profit. It is said that 

 he had so much time for work about the barn, so much for 

 field work, and he had it all planned out. As he had it laid 

 out, it left him thirty minutes for his meals, for feeding the 

 hogs and for family devotions. You take about two hours 

 for your meals, and I am glad of it, and you feed pretty well, 

 too. 



Now I am not going to make any speech. I want to 

 say that I feel more at home among a lot of Connecticut peo- 

 ple than I did a while ago. At the time of the Fruit Show in 

 Boston we were for several days in fear and trembling as to 

 how that Show was coming out, how we were coming out 

 financially. I am very glad that we came out all right finan- 

 cially as well as otherwise. One evening the Chamber of 

 Commerce gave us a fine banquet, and that was a very suc- 

 cessful and pleasant feature of the occasion. I very well re- 

 member that among the speakers was Mr. Hale, and I am 

 sorry not to meet him here this evening. When I looked 

 over the Chamber of Commerce, I could not help but feel 

 that the farmers and fruit growers of Massachusetts and 

 New England were coming into their own. There was a 

 great assemblage at that banquet, many of the representative 



