18 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pul>. Doc. 



Jersey milk from those cows, and no one ever questioned 

 the fact but what it was Jersey milk. 



You can see, if a man breaks away from the iiirm, what 

 a downfall he may have, going from an honest farmer to a 

 city politician. We find the same difficulty, I notice, in 

 trying to impress the fact upon the farmers to-day that has 

 always apparently attended the efforts of the people to con- 

 vince farmers that they have the best occupation there is in 

 the world. I have heard it repeated by all classes of men : 

 office holders and bankers, merchants and every class in the 

 professions and the businesses that we ever heard of, each 

 and all have told the farmer that he is the happiest man 

 living, engaged in the very best occupation. But somehow 

 or other the intelligent farmer refuses to take that view of 

 it, and still insists that it is hard work and poor pay which 

 meets the efforts of the average farmer. 



We have had our attention called to one phase of farming 

 in New England, and that is the abandoned farms. That 

 has two sides. It is rather depressing, I confess, to go 

 through the country and see the abandoned farms, — the 

 farms that are practically abandoned for agricultural pur- 

 poses ; and yet, after all, we should consider this phase of 

 it, — while the land of New England is not all occupied to 

 the extent it might be for agricultural purposes, it is there 

 ready to receive the attention of the ftirmer when the time 

 comes that there is sufficient demand for it, and it gives the 

 opportunity for growth and expansion in that branch of 

 New England life ; it always furnishes and will furnish until 

 it shall have been fully occupied, an opportunity for an 

 increase of that industry. 



What is more depressing to me than the fact that there 

 are some farms unoccupied is the fact that I am afraid we 

 must confess that after you get beyond the circle that is 

 stimulated by the demands of a city or a large village you 

 find, not abandoned farms in the sense that they are not 

 inha])ited, but have been abandoned by the neglect of the 

 owner, and these places that were once the homes of vigor- 

 ous farm life are going to decay. The buildings are not 

 kept up, the land is not kept up, and there is a general 

 appearance of inactivity. It is but one of the same things 



