252 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



to their proper uses, like the moneys of the Hatch Fund, so 

 called. Who will interest themselves in these matters if 

 farmers do not? Trained together in an organization like 

 the Grange, where these questions are discussed, they make 

 a power that the politician would fear to oppose, but seek 

 to conciliate. Farmers are ;ipt to fear the political strength 

 of others and underrate their own. To such we can com- 

 mend Shakespeare's words, — 



" Take thy fortunes up : 

 Be that thou knowest thou art, and then thou art 

 As great as that thou fcarest." 



Is not this attention to business? Yes, the very founda- 

 tion of it, for without proper laws the business would soon 

 be overthrown. 



The business of farming is a good one, and for the amount 

 of money invested yields a larger percentage of profit than 

 most others. It gives a home for the family, produces most 

 of the food consumed and fuel used, affords a horse and 

 carriaire for occasional outino-s, all of which make the farmer 

 the most independent of all classes. It is not conducted on 

 the borrowed capital plan that we find so much the case in 

 callings carried on in towns. It oftentimes has a part of its 

 capital borrowed, which is generally put in one shape, a 

 mortgage on the farm, which is handled only at stated times. 

 It is not conducted by a system of notes given at bank, 

 causing a perpetual worry of mind and necessitating a 

 speedy turning of goods into cash. Neither has it the 

 system of long credits, that cause the failures of so many. 

 Its hours are long in summer, but the average working 

 hours of the year are no more than those of the mechanic 

 and tradesman. The heavier labor of those hours is fully 

 oflset by its being carried on out-of-doors, in the pure air 

 and stimulating sunshine, and the cood health it brings. 



I would speak of education as a business point, but surely 

 in these days of enlightenment it is not necessary to enlarge 

 \ipon it. Knowledge is power wherever it is exerted. The 

 farm needs it, and responds to it as quickly as in any profes- 

 sion or calling. Ignorance and superstition are incompa- 

 tible with progress, and it is for progressive modes and 



