No. 4.] ADDRESS OF GOVERNOR GUILD. 23 



it to some of you already — of how a fencing master, who 

 came over here to the United States, as many a worthy fellow 

 has done before, to seek a living, to get a better living than 

 he could in the old country, succeeded. He taught me fenc- 

 ing about twelve years ago, when I used to take foils with 

 him at the gymnasium. One day he came to me with this 

 pamphlet of farms which were for sale for the sake of the 

 taxes. He had noticed an old farm down in Plymouth 

 County, where a Yankee farmer had died, and then the 

 family gradually had died out, and this was simply a piece 

 of not very fertile soil, not deep, rich soil; there was an old 

 apple orchard on it, and a sort of a swamp in one corner, where 

 a brook habitually overflowed and left a muddy pool. This 

 Frenchman went down there with his wife. The first thing 

 they did was to drain and dam that pool and brook, — it 

 had previously been dammed in another way, but it never 

 had been drained, — and they got a place where they could 

 raise ducks. They proceeded to raise ducks for the market. 

 In the brook above the pool they started watercress. He pur- 

 chased a few old windows, and began growing early vege- 

 tables under glass. His orchard was all run out, the apples 

 were no longer of any particular good for eating or cooking, 

 but they were still good enough to make cider, and he pro- 

 ceeded to utilize them for that purpose. Having started with 

 his ducks, he then proceeded to go to work on fancy poultry, 

 where a single egg you all know will often bring a larger 

 amount than an entire fowl of the old-fashioned brand. 

 Gradually he accumulated more and more money, until he 

 was able to bring his father and mother over from France, 

 — those French peasants, people who sometimes crumble the 

 soil with their fingers to get perfect access of moisture and 

 air. Those people, accustomed to hard work and intensive 

 farming, went to work on that old, abandoned land. The man 

 had to put a mortgage on the farm when he bought it, as he 

 had very little money. Father, mother, brother, sister, chil- 

 dren, husband and wife are all supported on that single patch 

 to-day, where twenty years ago it was loudly announced on 

 the political stump that it was no longer possible for any man 

 to make a living. And they are not only supported, but, with 



