30 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



farmer must learn by what course of husbandry he and 

 his farm can secure the greatest benetit to his family and at 

 the same time enhance the value of his estate, that his pro- 

 ductive industry must more than equal his increasing modes 

 of living, that he must live equally well with those engaged 

 in other pursuits. 



Happily the era is fast passing away in which farmers, 

 either rich or poor, in any section of our county, deem it 

 incompatible with their interests and with the dignity of 

 their vocation to live in homes deficient either in comforts 

 or embellishments such as the age now demands. 



I haven't time to speak fittingly of but few of the places 

 of interest which surround us here. We all have a com- 

 mendable pride in the city of our homes. At the beginning 

 of the nineteenth century it contained 2,411 people. Within 

 the lifetime of the speaker this place has grown from a town 

 of 3,500 inhabitants to a city of 120,000, having a valuation 

 of more than $112,000,000, with an annual productive in- 

 dustry of more than $45,000,000. 



These vast results are not largely caused by inherited 

 wealth, but by inherited brains and energy. We have not 

 only learned to produce a dollar more but to earn our 

 dollars better. With the increased facilities of the present 

 day, our agriculture and horticulture, with their various 

 phases, must compete with the whole country. 



Worcester County, lying in the central portion of the 

 State, traversing its entire width, compares favorably in 

 respect to its fertility of soil with any county in the Com- 

 monwealth. The farming pursued here is usually termed 

 mixed farming, the dairy being the most prominent and 

 leading interest, together with all the cereals, fruits, roots 

 and grasses that this latitude favors. Our farmers have 

 taken advantage of information obtained from exhibitions 

 of aofricultural and horticultural societies, from institute 

 meetings of agriculture and horticulture, and are well- 

 trained producers of all the farm and garden products that 

 an intelligent community demands. 



It is especially gratifying to those of us who have had th^ 

 privilege of watching the progress of agriculture for the 

 past fifty or sixty years. While some call its progress slow, 



