Address. 13 



this free country, if a man prefers the West he can go there, but some 

 one will take the old place, and the business will go on — some one 

 can and will live by it. In this as in other vocations, the intelligent, 

 industrious and sagacious will thrive and make money, others will 

 just manage to live and hold what they have, others will fail ; it is so 

 everywhere. It has always seemed to me that I have seen more 

 farmers in poverty in the West than here, men living in less com- 

 fortable homes, not so well clothed, their animals not so sleek and 

 well housed, their children not so well taught, and their wives living 

 a more desolate life. 



We too often forget how much of the gain in wealth by men in a 

 new region comes from the personal sacrifices made and the discom- 

 forts submitted to. I think that I know what that means. My own 

 childhood was spent on a new farm, and I know something of the 

 hard experience a family must endure when engaged in the great 

 work of subduing a wilderness and taming the wild places of nature. 

 Since then, when engaged in explorations and surveys in the wild 

 and newer parts of the country, I have come in contact with other 

 phases of farming in new places, and have had much opportunity to 

 know of the darker sides of pioneer life, and the privations of a 

 sparsely settled region. Many a man in this State who complains of 

 his poverty and bemoans the hardness of his lot, lives a life of luxury 

 compared with that of many a frontier farmer whose ultimate suc- 

 cess will blind his less wealthy brothers to the rugged path by which 

 this success has been reached. 



I do not take a desponding view of New England agriculture 

 under any pressure of competition that now exists or may arise in 

 the future. It will continue to flourish and instead of decaying, the 

 next century will see our hillsides dotted with even a larger number 

 of happy homes than now, and seed time and harvest will continue 

 to come and their promise shall not fail. 



