16 BOARD OF AGKICULTUKE. [Pub. Doc. 



effort to promoting this movement. I am aware that the 

 summer-home citizen does not add materially to the agri- 

 cultural production of a State, but he does add very materi- 

 ally to the financial welfare of the farmer. I can refer you 

 to towns in Avhich the value of the entire real estate has 

 doubled in ten years from the effect of the summer business ; 

 to towns where there is a market at better prices during two 

 or three months in the year for al)out every product of the 

 farm than are obtained at retail in Faneuil Hall ; and to in- 

 stances where a little boy has received $500 in a season for 

 fir-balsam pillows, the material for which was gathered from 

 his father's forest; and where a little girl has received $300 

 from the sale of sweet peas grown in her garden. The ex- 

 penditure of vast smiis of money in improving old farms, as 

 was done by a worthy citizen of Lowell in improving a farm 

 in one of our country towns to the amount of $100,000, 

 enables about every person in the town to derive financial 

 benefit. Every occupation and profession is included in the 

 list of beneficiaries, for not only carpenters, masons, painters 

 and blacksmiths come in for a share, but traders, doctors, 

 lawyers and ministers derive benefit therefrom. The money 

 that these people earn helps to l)uy the tanner's products as 

 well as the money that pays for supplies for the summer 

 resident's family. The sum of money annually left in New 

 Hampshire from the summer business is estimated at $8,- 

 000,000, — an amount equal to the value of the annual hay 

 crop of the State. The important matter in this connection 

 is to stimulate our farmers to cater to this market to a 

 greater extent, and to induce a few hundred ambitious, en- 

 ergetic farmei-s to engage in })()iiltry raising, market garden- 

 ing, fruit growing and cream production, with this market 

 especially in view. The sunnner business is bound to ulti- 

 mately add to agricultural prosperity, as well as to the social 

 and {esthetic advancement of the locality. I have referred 

 specially to the section of New England with which I am 

 most familiar, and the same possibilities exist in a greater 

 or less degree in the rural sections of all the New England 

 States. 



