1890.] PUBLIC DOCUMENT — No. 4. 195 



tion of law and order and property. This class has been, 

 and must continue largely to be, the farmers. It is aided 

 undoubtedly by the small freeholders of cities, men who own 

 their own homes ; but in larger cities this class is relatively 

 becoming less and less. In the country villages and suburban 

 towns it will remain and be an important factor; yet, for 

 several reasons, it can never be so important as that relating 

 to the occupants of farms. 



I have only glanced at this many-sided question from a 

 few points of view ; I have adduced some of the many rea- 

 sons why our nation's strength must be in its farmers in the 

 future, as it has been in the past. INIore profound statesmen 

 may see other deeper and more powerful reasons than I have 

 given ; but it seems to me that I have given enough to prove 

 that, if this nation is to remain the free country it has l)een 

 and seems destined to be, its hope is in an intelligent agri- 

 cultural class. 



Onlj^ this very week I have heard of the emigrant com- 

 missioner of a neighboring State trying to bring into New 

 England, German, French, Scandinavian or Irish peasants, 

 to occupy the so-called " abandoned farms " of his State. 



I listened with intense interest this afternoon to the 

 animated discussion over blooded stock. A speaker advo- 

 cated the grading-up of the dairy cows of the State, and told 

 how much it would add to our wealth and prosperity ; but he 

 was too slow for some of the impatient younger men, who 

 wanted nothing short of pure-breds, and selected pure-breds 

 at that, on their farms. 



Yet within a week we see a great city newspaper telling 

 us that the want of New England is peasant farmers. Out 

 upon the doctrine that the country wants blooded stock, l)ut 

 a scrub race of men, on its farms ! Sad, indeed, w^ould be 

 the day when New England will be tilled by a peasant class. 

 Better let the lands be " abandoned," and stay abandoned; 

 better let the forests grow anew and untouched, where the 

 fox may dig his hole unscared, and the traveler lose his 

 way in a wilderness, than that New England thought, New 

 England culture and New England statesmanship, be turned 

 over to a peasant class. 



Adjourned to Thursday morning, at 9.30. 



