282 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



to be successful in milk farming. Very likely some of you 

 would like to find a way to make it easy also. I assure you 

 that the former is all I care to undertake. But if there are 

 any persons present who think they can show us an easy way 

 to run a milk farm we shall be glad to listen. 



The world calls the man successful who amasses wealth. 

 While some through the "illusions of hope" may be san- 

 guine enough to expect to become millionaires, most of us 

 have had the experience of hope deferred so long that we 

 do not expect to be over-burdened with this world's goods. 

 Still, it is well for us to cling to the desire for success, for 

 only by stimulating our ambition can we accomplish sufficient 

 to enable us to claim a position among those who have served 

 their day and generation. We, as farmers, ought to at least 

 be able to leave to our successors a farm free from incum- 

 brance and provided with all the equipments essential for 

 its successful cultivation, with buildings in good repair, the 

 dwelling furnished with all that can make home pleasant, 

 a barn filled with thrifty stock, and fields so fertile that they 

 will be a fountain of income to those who may come after 

 us, and will attest to the success of him who went before. 

 We need not ask the advice of our relatives about the pro- 

 priety of leaving an investment, larger or smaller, in the 

 bank. 



Within the memory of many of us the agriculture of New 

 England has greatly changed. The ready means of trans- 

 portation from remote sections have brought the crops of 

 the fertile West into competition with our products, reduc- 

 ing the prices of many of our crops below the cost of 

 production. But, with the growth of our manufacturing 

 interests, milk, fruit and vegetables have assumed a nmch 

 greater prominence. We find farmers successfully making 

 a specialty of the production of each of these, or producing 

 all of them on the same farm, if the soil and location are 

 favorable. The demands of an accessible market will influ- 

 ence a far-sighted farmer to the choice of crops to raise. 

 But we have to consider successful milk production. A 

 very successful farmer has declared that the maintenance of 

 an ever increasing fertility of the soil is essential to success- 

 ful agriculture. 



