No. 4.] ^GRICULTUEAL EDUCATION. 159 



affairs of form life, giving a distaste for farm life ; and I be- 

 lieve that while, of course, there are other agencies at work, 

 this is one important reason for the great and ever-increasing 

 rush towards cities and large towns and desertion of the farms. 

 Our graduates, whatever profession they take up, whether 

 they are, as Secretary Sessions so eloquently said, doctors 

 or lawyers or ministers or business men or manufacturers, I 

 believe one and all have a thorough sympathy with farmers, 

 and I look to them to exercise an important influence in 

 changing the system of education in our public schools with 

 a view to lessening this tendency to leave the farms. When 

 once farming is thoroughly understood in reference to its 

 great value, every intelligent mind can but respect it and 

 admire it. 



It has been my fortune and privilege for the last two 

 years to have for a considerable i)art of the time as a private 

 student a gentleman some fifty years of age, a gentleman of 

 independent means, but who owns property that he would 

 like to know better how to manage, and I mention him for 

 this special reason. He has again and again, as I took up 

 one topic after the other and talked it over with him, said, 

 " AVhy, I never dreamed of this. I hadn't the slightest con- 

 ception of it." That is the common expression of every- 

 body who has never looked into these things. Some people 

 have no respect for f^irming and farmers, or but very little, 

 simply l)ecause they do not know what farming is. Now, 

 our graduates in all walks of life, knowing what it is, 

 whether they are farmers or not, will, I am sure, exercise a 

 most important influence in changing the system of training 

 in our common schools. 



Adjourned until 1.30 p.m. 



Afternoon Session. 



The chairman called the meeting to order at about 2 o'clock 

 and said : We have for the subject of the lecture this after- 

 noon one that we are all directly interested in, whether we 

 are farmers or not, and the lecturer will be Mr. E. W. Wood 

 of West Newton, who will speak to us on fruit growing, and 

 whom I have the pleasure now of introducing. 



