88 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



motor dull our ears to the .song of increasing outpouring 

 which nature sings through leaf and bud, through flower and 

 fruit, through seed time and liarvcst. 



Men of Massachusetts, who have questioned the future of 

 your agriculture, who have listened to the false prophets 

 who have told of the great wealth of your industries and the 

 passing of your agriculture, who have repeated the charge 

 that Massachusetts is not an am-icultural State until the 

 young have accepted it as truth, the day has come when the 

 falsity of these statements nuist be proven, when the cur- 

 rents of thouoht and energies of a new life must be centred 

 in defence of this one industry which opens wide the door- 

 way to the largest, freest, fullest life of the future. 



We have passed the stage Avhen the simple " how" claimed 

 attention, and are engulfed in the all-embracing conscious- 

 ness of the "why." We are touching elbows with giant 

 forces to-day, and the mastery of mind is demanded as never 

 before for the solution of the intricate problems facing indi- 

 vidual workers in every dejuirtment of farm life. Only in 

 the solution of the "why" will it be possible to rightly 

 appreciate the "how." 



One of your honored sons, whose life is devoted to the 

 study of agriculture, has lately declared that "There must 

 be a change in the spirit of the peoi)le before the farmhouses 

 will be occupied by a class that will have much influence in 

 uplifting rural New England." Is this true? If so, then 

 this Board of Agriculture has not met the varying phases of 

 public sentiment in the past with that strong, earnest but 

 bold defence of the farm, of farm life and its sio^nificance, 

 as it must in the future. The vastness of the prairies has 

 overwhelmed us, and we have drifted. 



What New England needs to-day, yes, what is coming to 

 New England, is a bold spirit of enthusiasm, not for defence, 

 but conquest; not primarily for recognition, but to make 

 recognition certain by doing, by a deeper faith in the value 

 of the ftirm, a better realization of what it can l^e made to 

 yield in quantity as well as quality of crops and products, 

 and above all in the (juality of manhood. The thrill of the 

 life to-day must be felt in the orgunized power of the State 



