No. 4.] ADDRESS OF GOVERNOR GUILD. 19 



the success and development of jour organization. Where 

 one does well the other must also. 



Secretary Ellsworth. The Governor, who is a member of 

 the Board of Agriculture, and its president, generally honors 

 us with his presence during some of the important sessions, 

 hut seldom have we been thus honored at the first session. It 

 is my pleasure to introduce to you His Excellency Curtis 

 Guild, Jr. 



ADDRESS BY HIS EXCELLENCY CURTIS GUILD, JR. 



Mr. Secretary, General Weld, ladies and gentlemen: I am 

 extremely sorry that in the last report of the State Board of 

 Agriculture the secretary should have noted that I cancelled 

 my engagement last year in Springfield, but omitted to state 

 that the only thing that could have kept me away was the 

 supposed fatal illness of my wife, and a man's first duty lies 

 at home and not to his public office. 



It is a double pleasure for me to be here to-day and wel- 

 come you to the city of Boston, and thank the Horticultural 

 Society, through its president, whose interesting address of 

 welcome we have all heard with so much pleasure, for the 

 kindness and courtesy which they have thus extended. I 

 want to emphasize what General Weld has so truly said, 

 — the importance in any community and any nation of 

 that class of the population who come not in indirect but 

 in direct contact with the soil, and the fact that all the 

 industries of the nation must in the last resort rest 

 upon the prosperity of the farmer and the cultivator. I am 

 fond of quoting the good old English song, " God speed the 

 plow," with which I suppose you are all familiar. If that 

 was a good song in the good old days of Queen Elizabeth in 

 England, it is a good song here in Massachusetts to-day. I 

 want you to understand that, not the heads of the State Board 

 of Agriculture, but the Massachusetts State Board of Agri- 

 culture doesn't listen in silence to any flings or stings or re- 

 flections on Massachusetts as an agricultural State, and her 

 standing as such among all the States of the Union. I some- 

 times think it unfortunate that the critical character of the 



