414 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



calling; the weapons that shall best enable him to 

 meet this great law of competition, and so learn that 

 competition is not to be looked upon necessarily as an 

 enemy, but rather as the tonic which has stimulated effort 

 more and more upon those .lines which we may hope to hold 

 in this race and struggle for supremacy. Competition, with 

 its eager and relentless tread, untiring in its search for 

 methods still better, for products still cheaper, must ever 

 stand in contrast with monopoly, which tends to stifle, and 

 to compel the acceptance of that which may be neither 

 cheapest nor best. I say, then, that competition puts a pre- 

 mium upon intelligence, upon skill, upon business methods, 

 upon indomitable pluck, upon untiring industry, upon a wise 

 choice of the kind of product sought. It does away, if one 

 covets success, with the attempt to raise a little of every- 

 thing, and compels the farmer to fall into line with workers 

 in all other industries, and become himself a specialist. It 

 insists that, to gain the highest success, individuality must 

 be stamped upon the product sold ; whatever the article may 

 be, let our own individual skill go with the product, to give it 

 increased! selling value. The farmer who puts skill into the 

 manufacture of his butter, and makes sure that the consumer 

 shall know just whose skill is represented in the nutty, sweet- 

 scented product, may have a satisfactory margin of profit, 

 and well illustrates this principle ; while the man who packs 

 his butter, though equally good, into an unmarked firkin, 

 and sends it unnamed upon a general market, invites a com- 

 petition so fierce that no profit rewards his labor. Deerfoot 

 Farm uses the same skill in advertising its excellent products, 

 by having every package marked " Deerfoot," that the man- 

 ufacturer Byron Weston displays in insisting that every ream 

 of his famous ledger paper shall carry the name " Weston." 

 I have now pointed out some factors that are necessary to 

 insure success in New England farming. Loudly has the 

 bugle sounded for the farmer to organize; while hearing 

 this call, let him still remember that, for him, the very best 

 organization is the training and arousing of his own powers. 

 To-day Massachusetts farming invites the intelligent, the 

 industrious, the enthusiastic to join its lists, promising suc- 

 cess as great as can be attained anywhere in our broad land. 



