10 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



interest agriculturists as much as anything, an organized 

 milk association, through which many of our hard-working 

 farmers supply the varied products of their herds directly to 

 the consumers. 



We welcome you, not to an agricultural town, but to the 

 centre of a large agricultural community, — a community in 

 condition to be greatly benefited by this meeting, because 

 realizinoj its need of all the knowledsre to be gained throusrh 

 the scientific investigations and the practical experience of 

 those who shall address us and who shall engage in discus- 

 sion. 



We shall bring as listeners an audience whose experience 

 is as varied as the well-ordered programme which we are to 

 follow, — who will come here hoping to gain that inspiration 

 which shall enable us to do more and better thinking, and to 

 put to practical use the conclusions of such thinking. This 

 in all matters of business is the great demand of the day, — 

 not to gain a few things desirable in an easy way, but so to 

 direct our energies that constantly doing our best we shall 

 constantly develojo our best faculties and gain increasing 

 results. 



When we were at Barre, a year ago, we were told that 

 dairying in some form had been the chief business of the 

 farmers there for fifty years. The only one line of farming 

 that ever held dominant sAvay in this Connecticut Valley was 

 the culture of tobacco. 



This Board held the first of these annual public meetings, 

 — in compliance with a vote passed in January, 1863, — in 

 this city, December 8 to 11 of the same year. There was 

 a feeling then that the farmers of these neighboring towns 

 did themselves injustice by neglecting that meeting. 



May it not be that we were so enveloped in the smoke of 

 tobacco that we could not see the importance of the topics 

 then under consideration? It is now conceded by careful 

 observers that for a series of years, up and down this valley, 

 it has cost the tobacco-grower a dollar and a half to get a 

 dollar. Farms have been sold and homes sacrificed to pay 

 obligations assumed to buy fertilizers, build barns, and hire 

 labor in the interest of tobacco. 



We have learned a little wisdom at considerable cost, and 



