12 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



clone by increasing the amount of production. It has been- 

 said that none are so far from market as those who have 

 nothing to sell, and it is coming to be more and more a 

 necessity to increase the sales from our farms. 



It is a favorite theory with certain agitators that no one 

 can gain the good things of this life without in some way 

 robbing some fellow man ; but the former who adds to his 

 estate by making land more productive, and by increasing 

 and improving his flocks and herds, robs no one. 



The original reads, "In the sweat of thy face" (not thy 

 neighbor's faee, as too many seem in these days to read it) 

 " shalt thou eat bread." The patriarch Jacob, in contend- 

 ing with his father Laban, who had become rich under 

 his stewardship, explains it all when he says, " In the 

 day the drought consumes me and the frost by night, and 

 my sleep departed from mine eyes." And later on, declining 

 the invitation of his brother to leave his flocks with others 

 and go with him for a little vacation, he says, "If men 

 should over-drive them one day, all the flock will die." 



As farmers we do well to meet as we do to-day. We 

 need all the stimulus and all the encoura2:;ement we can ""ct. 

 We do not risk as much as our neighbors in other business. 

 Our opportunities do not come and go as quickly as theirs, 

 and we are not pressed as they are to be constantly on the 

 alert. Herein lies a danger we need to guard against. Wa 

 must wait for results, therefore the more need of care and 

 foresight. 



We arc not likely to do many great things in life, but wo 

 shall not lack opportunity to do numberless little things 

 which will o-o to swell the aij2;rc£::ate of 2;ood accomi:)lishcd 

 in the world. We shall not make money like the most 

 prosperous in other callings, and we shall not be subject to 

 those ci*ushing losses by which so many are overwhelmed. 



We meet to consider the interests of Massachusetts 

 agriculture, but the interests of our sister New England 

 States are so nearly identical with our own, that we wel- 

 come to this mcctino; and to these discussions our brethren 

 from neighboring States, and shall try to lead them to 

 forget that any dividing lines exist between us. The inter- 



