15 



we hear and read, and which some of us have seen, will be- 

 come of that homelike character belonging to our New Eng- 

 land forms. I have travelled over one of those famous farms. 

 Its extent was, 71,000 acres. It took two days to drive through 

 it, stopping as we went and returned, to examine but seven of 

 the butter manufactories. For the farm was divided into 

 twenty-one dairy farms, for the manufacture of butter. To 

 each farm was allotted between sixty and seventy cows. The 

 buildings were furnished, and the farm and the cows were 

 leased to the farmer for $25 a year. 



But the owner of this immense plantation, and of more than 

 a thousand cows, with oxen and bulls and young cattle and 

 sheep and horses, in like proportion, did not live upon his 

 farm ; and in no one of the farm houses did we see a woman. 

 There was no home about them. I have wandered many days 

 and many miles with other New Englanders over the plains of 

 Florida, whose soil will produce all the grains and the semi- 

 tropical fruits with almost no labor, and we used to say that 

 we would not exchange a farm of sixteen acres in the most 

 barren part of Massachusetts for the whole State of Florida. 



Mr, President : — It is an unmistakable proof of the dignity 

 of all pursuits and of labor in any way connected wdth agri- 

 culture, that the interest in these farmers' festivals never 

 ceases, never decreases, but continually grows. We all feel 

 that it is the farmers who hold the world together. Without 

 them the manufactures would cease ; without the men who 

 raise the corn and oats, and all grains, and raise the cattle, 

 commerce would languish, and the ships which now cover the 

 ocean would rot at their wharves. Farming is the labor of 

 most of us in early days, and we delight to return to it in old 

 age. There is an indescribable pleasure in these farmers' 

 gatherings ; there is an excitement in the sight of fat cattle, 

 and flocks of sheep, in roaring Durham, Devon, Hereford, 

 Ayrshire, or Jersey Bulls, and the meek-eyed heifers of the 

 various breeds, in the prancing of fiery-mouthed stallions 

 and fleet-footed mares — rulers of the turf — which moves us 

 and sends our blood hilarious through our veins ; — there is a 

 never wearying delight from the exhibition of vegetables and 



