68 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



improvements are going on. But is your county, and is the old 

 Bay State, able to show as many animals of the most approved 

 breeds, as would be for the interest of her farmers ? Perhaps 

 so, but I must say that I doubt it. There must come a time 

 when there will be fine animals, and when the prices will be so 

 within bounds, that other than fancy farmers can afford to own 

 them, and I desire it to be hastened. 



I would gladly have spoken on other topics, connected with 

 your employment, but I have detained you too long. 



It remains, that I congratulate the officers and members of 

 your society, the farmers and the mechanics of Worcester West, 

 the ladies, and all who have contributed to this festival, on the 

 success of your exhibition. 



If the ladies will tolerate a little egotism, I will tell them a 

 short story about myself. I once gave an address before an 

 agricultural society in the Green Mountain State ; and there 

 were so many things I wanted to say to the farmers, that I 

 found no time to talk to their wives and daughters. I did not 

 forget them — I never do such a thing as that. But seeing them 

 appear deeply interested in what I had said about farm matters 

 in general, I ventured to wind up without addressing them in 

 particular, and I do not know when I shall hear the last of it. 



Another story for the ladies. One story, you know, is apt to 

 lead to another. It is very short. When I was a boy, and my 

 mother gave me pieces of pic, I always ate the crust first. That 

 was to have the best last. And now, ladies of Worcester West, 

 bless your hearts, for we all know that your hands have done 

 well. While your fathers and brothers and husbands have 

 achieved those wonderful improvements which we witness, on a 

 once hard soil, you have discharged in-door duties, not less 

 important, hardly less laborious, and requiring even greater 

 skill and patience. And here let me close, by asking of your 

 other halves, and of some, perhaps, anxious to become such, 

 whether, after all their brag, you are not the best farmers 

 among them ? And as farming is a sort of a company business, 

 not apt to succeed well under one owner, but more generally 

 Hmited to two, I see not but its future prospects will depend 

 quite as much upon the ladies' as upon the gentlemen's side of 

 the house. 



