232 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan. 



taxation is not distributed more equally and justly, there 

 will be more abandoned farms than we have now. 



But to sum up and crystallize the sense of the meeting, to 

 give it some point, I would move that this meeting here and 

 now appoint a committee of five, whose business it shall be to 

 appear before the committee on taxation of the next Legis- 

 lature, and present the case, and likewise invite every 

 farmer to go with them before that committee, and push 

 things. This is a world of push and energy, and those who 

 push hardest and are most persistent accomplish most. It 

 is time the farmers did some energetic pushing. You may 

 talk here until doomsday, and if you take no action you will 

 accomplish nothing. You say that it depends upon the 

 Secretary of the State Board or upon some other official, and 

 the farmers' duties are discharged in that way. Are they ? 

 I think not. I think the appointment of such a committee is 

 a proper method of action, and would so move, and I would 

 ask the chairman not to appoint me upon that committee. 



Mr. Eaton. There is one phase of this subject of taxation 

 that has not been touched upon, which is of great interest to 

 the farmers especially ; that is, the matter of taxation for 

 the support of schools. We know that the education of our 

 children throughout the State is of just as much interest to 

 one man as it is to another, but the inequalities of the tax 

 for the support of schools are great. That is, the tax rate 

 needed to raise five dollars per scholar in some of the 

 country towns is four times what would be necessary to 

 raise the same sum per scholar in Boston. Now, I say that 

 the State Board should. use their influence with the Legis- 

 lature to levy a State tax for the support of the schools in a 

 gross sum, and then let the towns draw from that amount a 

 sum in proportion to the number of scholars they have to 

 educate, in that way equalizing the tax all over the State for 

 the education of our children. By doing that, many of the 

 poor country towns would draw from the State treasury a 

 sum greater than that which they pay in. 



The Chairman. Will Mr. Bill of Paxton please repeat the 

 resolution which he offered? 



Mr. Bill. I offered it in the form of a motion. In order 

 to bring the matter to a head, and have some results come 



