108 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



he achieves the greatest success as a fanner or citizen who 

 accumulates the most money. I do not accept that criterion. 

 I consider that the man who achieves the greatest success is 

 the man who does as Benjamin Franklin said of his father : 

 " Without an estate or any gainful employment, by constant 

 labor and honest industry, he reared a large family reputa- 

 bly." You will find this on the stone in the Granary Burial 

 Ground. There is no collocation of words in the English 

 language that can, to my mind, express more adequately the 

 true idea of success in life, -- " To rear a large lamily reputa- 

 bly, without any estate or gainful employment" ; and if that 

 can be brought into correlation with competence and the 

 acquisition of those things which tend to make life comfort- 

 able, enjoyable and happy, then we have achieved the highest 

 type of success. 



We often see men of whom we say that they have been 

 successful formers, and you ^ill excuse me if I make allusion 

 to a little experience that I had in that regard. On one 

 occasion I attended a meeting where the subject under dis- 

 cussion was successful husbandry, and one told how he had 

 raised a large quantity of onions, got a great price, and made 

 large gains ; another man told how he had raised strawber- 

 ries and been very successful ; another man had raised tur- 

 nips, another cauliflower ; and then a gentleman was called 

 upon, a man of fine presence, and he was introduced as one 

 who had been highly successful in agriculture. He had 

 acquired property, so that in the decline of life he could live 

 in comfort without labor, simply from the accumulations that 

 he had made by the successful practice of the art of hus- 

 bandry. Then they called me out, pretty much as I am 

 called out here, not because I had anything special to say, 

 and possibly because you thought perhaps I would make a 

 better speech for the very reason that I did not know any- 

 thing of what I was talking about. I spoke then pretty 

 much as I am speaking now. I said that I considered the 

 successful man the man who stood in his place, did his duty 

 in life, and educated his family ; and when any man claimed 

 to be successful, I wanted to know what he had done to see 

 that his place in the world was ably and creditably filled 

 when he passed away ; I wanted to know how his wife lived ; 



