140 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



so fruitful, perhaps, as the richer counties of the eastern end of 

 the State ; and yet, if the Board could see what the farmers of 

 Berkshire have wrung from these hillsides, naturally barren, 

 they would believe that they have good farms and know how to 

 till them. They would see in these barns heaps of grain, tons 

 of hay, fat cattle, and every evidence of successful farming. 



I thank the Board for coming so far, and I thank them for 

 coming so universally. Especially do I thank the chairman of 

 this meeting, whose name, in connection with the branch of 

 horticulture on which he has spoken to-day, is known all over 

 the world. None more celebrated than he ; none more success- 

 ful than he ; none more capable of teaching than he ; and it is 

 owing to his efforts, in a great measure, perhaps as much, if not 

 more, than to those of any other man, that the gardens all 

 around us are filled with fruit-trees, that every man enjoys 

 what used to be a luxury, and that fruit, once so rarely found 

 except on the tables of the rich, can now be seen in nearly 

 every shop, and sold at a comparatively moderate price. 



I thank the distinguished gentleman who has spoken to us to- 

 night ; a gentleman who put aside the brilliant offers of a court 

 which rewards the scientific men who come into its precincts 

 with the highest honors, to remain here, that he might teach us, 

 as he has done to-night, how to cheapen food. I thank him for 

 coming here to teach us this thing. 



In behalf of the farmers of this county I return these thanks, 

 and in behalf of the manufacturers I return these thanks ; for 

 manufacturing is no small item in Berkshire County. I thank 

 the Board of Agriculture that they are teaching the. farmers of 

 Berkshire how to increase the products of their fields. Increase 

 of production means cheap food ; increase of fishes means 

 cheap food ; and not only cheap food, but good health. I thank 

 the professor for teaching us how to cheapen food ; for cheap 

 food means cheap labor, cheap labor means greater production, 

 greater production means cheaper articles of consumption, and 

 greater profits to the manufacturer. 



Gentlemen, — I can only add to my thanks the ardent wish 

 that we may have the pleasure of again seeing these gentlemen 

 here, and listening again to those teachings which we have 

 heard with so much pleasure and so much profit. 



The President. It is not my province, ladies and gentlemen, 



