1889.] PUBLIC DOCUMENT — No. 4. 7 



the instant. The great truth enforced by the example and 

 the words of our Lord, that " it is more blessed to give than 

 to receive," ought to be realized in every man's experience. 

 It is worth while to be a good farmer, a good mechanic, a 

 good merchant ; but it is worth infinitely more to be a good 

 man. We have seen what two such men have accomplished 

 in a single town. No wonder that ten good men could have 

 saved Sodom. Surely ten men of this class in every town 

 in this Commonwealth would suffice to banish the great evil 

 which our legislators have striven in vain to remove. How 

 shall this number be made up? Let these sturdy, clear- 

 headed, order-loving farmers answer the question. Will 

 they not themselves at once come to the front, and make the 

 number good ? Will they not also swell the ranks by fitting 

 their children to follow their example ? Can there be any 

 better training-school for such a purpose than the farmer's 

 home ? If only every farmer would live an earnest and un- 

 selfish life, the whole world would be saved. 



The visible results attained by the skilled tiller of the soil 

 desei-vedly awaken our high admiration. To convert the 

 barren waste into a fruitful field, to make the desert 

 blossom as the rose, is a noble work, worth all it costs. 

 But let there be added to this, a saved world, no more 

 wrecked lives, everywhere the glory of the redeemed I 



ADDRESS BY THE CHAIRMAN. 



DR. GEORGE B. LORING OF SALESI. 



I have been requested, gentlemen, to preside over this 

 day's proceedings, not because I have in recent years been 

 connected with the Board, but, I suppose, because the an- 

 tiquity of my connection had appealed to the secretary. In 

 discharge of this duty, I desire to call the attention of the 

 Board to the organi2;ation of these meetings, to the steps by 

 which they were reached, and to the benefit which they have 

 exerted upon the agriculture of the Commonwealth of Massa- 

 chusetts ; and I shall make my statement as brief as possible, 

 with the hope that I may instruct and interest you in the 

 work consigned to your care. 



In 1861, on the 12th of December, at the meeting of the 

 Board then sitting in Boston, I offered a resolution that it 



