284 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan. 



prise might work effectively therein for the good of all. But, 

 while a friendly interest in whatever is helpful to the agri- 

 cultural class may be wide-spread and very general, the bur- 

 den of maintaining an organization for the benefit of farmers 

 must fall upon themselves. The work is theirs, and none 

 else can, even if they desired, do it for them. Their help 

 must be self help. Out of the peculiar difficulties which 

 beset them, the formers must extricate themselves. The 

 obstructions found in their pathway they themselves must 

 remove. If they ask help, they must ask it as allies, and 

 not as dependents. They should not ask it at all, unless 

 fully prepared to do what they can for themselves, and to 

 render an equivalent for all the help they receive. If the 

 criticism were made that farmers as a class failed in vigorous 

 self-assertion, and in sturdy resistance where class interests 

 are threatened or invaded, I, for one, should feel obliged to 

 conceal the fact, though I might find, in the conditions which 

 surround the farmer's life, much of excuse for it. But I 

 want to be in such a position relative to this whole subject 

 that I shall not need to deal in excuses at all. I hate ex- 

 cuses. I neither enjoy making them myself or having them 

 made to me. They always imply failure, and you can never 

 be quite sure that they justify failure, or show that it was 

 inevitable. Failure can never be justified, so long as any 

 reasonable, practicable, obvious means of averting it remains 

 untried. Anything short of the highest success can be justi- 

 fied only by showing that every possible effort was made, 

 and vainly made, and every available agency pressed into 

 service, and found inadequate to attain it. Men must fail 

 sometimes ; but, if the hard necessity is upon one, let him 

 so fail as to be under no necessity of making excuses. For 

 a mean and narrow social life, for stingy contributions to 

 the public weal, for nerveless grasp and uncertain guidance 

 of public affiiirs, it will be hard for a class so strong in num- 

 bers and important in function as are the farmers of this 

 country, to make any acceptable excuse. And there ought 

 not to be any occasion for excuse. A mighty army in num- 

 ber, essential beyond all others in function, the farming class 

 has but to lay hold of the power of association and right 

 organization, and it will be equipped to give ample protec- 



