No. 4.] RESPONSE BY F. W. SARGENT. 35 



hard money. We can only imagine what that has meant 

 in the midst of suffering and distress. This spirit prevails in 

 Westfield to a very exceptional degree. I greet you in be- 

 half of the fraternal spirit of Westfield. May your stay be so 

 pleasant that you may go away with light hearts, rejoicing 

 in the time spent here in a town not only with good streets 

 and good schools and large manufactories and prosperous 

 stores, but also a pleasant little city, by the softly falling 

 river, where friendship and fraternity abound and hospitality 

 to an unbounded degree. 



The Chair. Response by F. W. Sargent, member of the 

 Board from the Amesbury and Salisbury Agricultural and 

 Horticultural Society, 



Mr. Sargent. It gives me great pleasure to respond to 

 the sentiment of good fellowship of the grange, so beauti- 

 fully presented by the brother. The order of Patrons of 

 Husbandry is one that takes a place in the agriculture of 

 our State, and of our country, that cannot be filled by any 

 other organization. It has become a power in our land. 

 The meetings of the grange do much toward bringing the 

 farmer and his family into close touch and close connection 

 with his neighbors and his friends, and they are the means 

 of educating them in a social and intellectual way. 



We meet to discuss not only the agricultural interests, 

 but those of the countrj^ and of the nation in general. Our 

 meetings are interesting, they are instructive, and to those 

 w^ho are in the order they are a great benefit. As the 

 brother has said, there are not enough of the farmers of 

 Massachusetts members of the grange. I wish the order 

 might be larger than it is. 



The home grange with which I am connected is located in 

 the extreme north-eastern corner of the State. The grange 

 there was indirectly started by a member of the Board 

 of Agriculture. This member came to the western part of 

 the State, and became so interested in the grange work that 

 he went back home and organized the first grange in that 

 section of the State in 1886. We now have eleven strong 

 granges, with a membership of about fourteen hundred 

 people. The work of the grange and the local agricultural 

 society is always carried on in a most friendly manner. 



