No. 1.] RESPONSE BY VICE-PRES. SESSIONS. i:J 



met in Springfield twice, in Easthampton once, in Amhersl 

 twice, in Greenfield three times and in Westfield twice. So 

 you see the plan of the Board to provide for the conven- 

 ience of the farmers in the State attending these meetings 

 has been pretty well attended to as regards the Connecticut 

 valley. 



The Board is always happy to meet in the Connecticut 

 valley, for here we find more farms to the square mile than 

 anywhere, unless in our western hills. The business of agri- 

 culture has always been, as the mayor has well said, pro- 

 ductive in this valley. Here are some of the finest, most 

 fertile lands of the whole State, and this State possesses 

 some six thousand acres of level, Connecticut valley soil, 

 which has produced in years gone by famous crops and made 

 its owners wealthy, and the day will come again when the 

 meadows of Northampton and Hatfield will bear as great a 

 value as the}' did some years ago. We can see in the future 

 a change coming over the agriculture of the country which 

 is o-oino; to benefit these lands, and instead of their jjoino- 

 begging for purchasers, they will be sought after as they 

 were years ago. The owners of these lands, when I was a 

 boy, years ago, — more years than you may think, possibly, 

 — were called the river gods, and they were among the most 

 influential people in the State of Massachusetts, looked up 

 to by the citizens of Boston as strong men of the State, who 

 held their places with the educated, the college-educated 

 men, with the professional men, with the merchants of Bos- 

 ton and the larg-e cities, and to-dav I am convinced that the 

 farmers of the Connecticut valley are not inferior to their 

 predecessors, although they are too modest to force them- 

 selves forward as some of the other professions do. 



But, as Mayor Watson has well said, you did not come 

 here to hear me talk, and having once more thanked the 

 mayor and the citizens of Northampton for the cordial wel- 

 come to this city, and expressing the hope that this Board 

 may continue to be interested in the people of Northampton 

 and to interest them, I will come to the regular programme 

 of the day . 



The first lecture is on " Modern Potato Culture," by Dr. 



