214 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



aside from the value of civilizing the hoodlumism and sav- 

 agery in our midst, the outlay in wise education would be 

 repaid ten-fold in enhanced value of property alone. 



Where are the peach orchards of which Massachusetts 

 was justly proud a generation ago? We may say that the 

 yellows have destroyed them. The yellows can be effec- 

 tually dealt with ; but there is a worse evil, which, so far as 

 I have been able to judge, lies nearer to the root of the mat- 

 ter. Take three cases that may serve to illustrate my point. 

 A vear or two ago I drove several miles into the country to 

 a place where I was told was a peach orchard of fifteen 

 acres. I found a rolling pasture, with not a peach tree in 

 sight. A whitehaired man told me, however, that he had 

 had an orchard, but that the fight had been too much for 

 him. He had been obliged to keep watchmen patrolling 

 the place night and day, and even then his trees would be 

 torn down and carried off. In another instance the man 

 still had his orchard, but told me that he was obliged to 

 protect it in the same way, and he showed me the rifle 

 which he used to frighten away intruders. He was about 

 eighty years of age, and it was plain that this battle would 

 go the way of the first. An accidental visit to a third 

 orchard disclosed the fact that the night before thieves had 

 cut a wire fence, driven into the orchard, and loaded a wagon 

 with the choicest peaches, ruthlessly breaking and destroy- 

 in «• the trees. 



O 



I do not need to multiply examples ; } r ou know them too 

 well already. What are we to do about it? The prisons 

 are full to overflowing ; the law and police, preaching and 

 punishing, have reached their limits. I could go even fur- 

 ther, and show that this whole repressive philosophy of 

 public control is uncivilized, and tends to create the very 

 condition of affairs which it seeks to alleviate. Others have 

 done this better than I possibly could. But ask yourselves 

 this one question : What reasonable or possible foundation in 

 his own character can a child have, who has never worked, 

 produced or owned anything himself, for respect of the own- 

 ership rights of others? How can we lay this foundation in 

 the child's character? The surest way, as it seems to me, is 



