278 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan. 



does is the essential work. What seem to some the hard 

 conditions of the farmer's life, may drive you and me out of 

 it into something which offers greater attractions : but, if we 

 desert, our places must be filled by new recruits. The farm- 

 ing class must continue, and it is of the highest importance 

 that its work be well done. It holds, as no other class does, 

 the welfare of the whole community in its hands. It should 

 be equipped for good work. All the powers and privileges 

 which it can rightly use, all the attractions and compensations 

 to which it is fairly entitled, it should demand and receive. 



Agriculture is more than a business. It is a life. Men 

 employed in other avocations can make the separation 

 between their business and their life very nearly complete. 

 They can go home and leave their business behind them. 

 Not so the farmer. His home must be with his business. 

 His business must come into his home, and those who share 

 his home must also be his partners in business, if it is to be 

 successful. This fact must be taken note of in framing asso- 

 ciations for his especial use. They must be so framed as not 

 only to promote his business prosperity, but also to con- 

 tribute to the fulness and satisfaction of home life for him 

 and his. 



What should be the relation of the farmer to the govern- 

 ment under which he lives? His membership in this great 

 association is not a matter of choice with him. He comes 

 into it, as do its other members, by the avenue of birth, and 

 he can withdraw only through the solemn portals of death. 

 While he lives he is a member ; and the query is. What 

 does this membership mean to him, and how should he 

 use it? 



I venture to use here, for purpose of illustration, a recent 

 incident in my own experience. At a reunion last spring of 

 the Army and Navy Club of Connecticut, there was de- 

 volved upon me the pleasant duty of responding to this senti- 

 ment, " The Farmer Soldier." The tcme of the meeting had 

 been light and joyous ;. but this theme took such possession 

 of me that I could not treat it lightly. So far as my own 

 observation went, so far as other sources of information sup- 

 plemented it, our army in the late war was very largely an 

 army of farmers. I believe this to be true of patriotic 



