282 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan. 



siderations bearing upon the matter marshal themselves in 

 solid phalanx, and press forward to the one conclusion. The 

 tillers of the soil must have an association of and for them- 

 selves. They may make use of those associations which care 

 for the interest they hold in common with others, or which 

 express the feeling and thought of common humanity ; but, 

 in order that they may rightly use these, they imperatively 

 need an organization which shall be all their own. In this 

 they can find the training which will equip them for effective 

 service in other associations In it they can give the neces- 

 sary attention to their business interests, and, with the 

 advantages it furnishes, may meet the trader upon more 

 nearly equal terms than when isolated and unprepared. 

 Here, too, each individual farmer can find help for his own 

 particular battle ; for I think, in farming as in no other busi- 

 ness, the strife is individualized. It is, like the old Homeric 

 wars, a series of personal combats, instead of being, as in 

 modern warfare, mass against mass. Thus each farmer has 

 his own peculiar combination of adverse conditions to meet, 

 to fight, to conquer if he can. No one else can fight his 

 battle for him, but others can help him wondrously by the 

 stimulus of success in conditions different indeed, but no 

 harder than his own ; by the suggestion of principles and 

 methods capable of adaptation to his case ; and by the cheer 

 which comes from simple contact with others of like interests, 

 trials, difficulties and hopes. He needs the power of associa- 

 tion and the machinery of organization to bring this help to 

 him in adequate measure. 



I have already spoken of the close relation existing be- 

 tween the farmer's business and the home life of himself and 

 family. The association which is to fit his needs must take 

 this fact into consideration, and serve him socially as well as 

 in his business interests and his relations as a citizen. Per- 

 haps there is no point in the whole circle of his needs where 

 the demand for relief is more imperative than here. Most 

 sorrowful indeed are the pictures, truthfully drawn, of the 

 isolation, the monotony, the round of unvarying and unre- 

 lieved drudgery with which the cup of life is filled to the 

 brim for the members of many farm households. We may 

 and do protest against the assumption that these are typical 



