No. 4.] BOARDS OF AGRICULTURE. 39 



I sometimes think that, the multiplication of farm ma- 

 chinery is a positive injury to the farmers of New England. 

 A man said to me the other day that he had never harvested 

 his acres of corn so easily as this year. He paid a man two 

 dollars an acre to cut the corn and tie it up ready for 

 stooking. Could he earn that two dollars easier some other 

 way than he could cutting it himself ? If not, the bringing 

 in of improved machinery is becoming a further burden. 

 These machines not only lift heavy burdens from the back 

 and hands, but they also do the work with greater rapidity. 

 If, as we get relief in one direction, the machine is used to 

 swell the output, then, in enlarged operations, there will 

 be profit. Not in restricted but extended work are they 

 to be found profitable. Here is a work for the board of 

 agriculture in its institute work. 



One thing more : it is the importance of enforcing the 

 lesson that growing and producing the best of which the 

 man and farm are capable is only one-half the story, that 

 the selling has as much to do with success as growing ; and 

 the work of the board of agriculture is not completed until 

 it has assisted the farmer to help himself to a full knowledge 

 of markets and demands and the best means and methods 

 of putting the product thereon. 



Here are some simple lines of work. You have gained 

 the inspiration of these larger gatherings. You are going 

 back to your homes to hold the institutes which are re- 

 quired by law. Are they to be better than last winter? 

 Are they to be of more service? Are you to call in a 

 larger number than ever before ? It is the doing of some 

 service which is necessary. How this question comes upon 

 us, as we realize the demands of the day, the competition 

 which forces itself upon our attention. What necessity 

 there is that we should use these agencies in order that we 

 may make our organization more effective and helpful. 

 What is to be the future of the New England farms ? Are 

 the boys from your families to be the men who will till the 

 soil, or are we to be dependent upon a foreign population ? 

 I have here indicated some of the lines which it seems to 

 me we may carry forward, and make more effective the 



