214 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



lectures and discussions following them ; would know his 

 neighbors better, and form acquaintances that would be 

 lasting, and also give him some idea of the good emanating 

 from the fairs held in the different sections of the State. 



The grange is also a place well worthy of the attention of 

 my brother farmers, both as to social and educational advan- 

 tages ; and many an awkward New England boy owes his 

 success in life to the learning and ambitions awakened in the 

 hospitable grange halls, where he was taught how to preside 

 and to think and command language to express his thought 

 in public ; and many a farmer's wife and daughter have 

 learned to look forward to the meetings, to which they are 

 welcomed and which they enjoy with the husbands and 

 brothers, — banquets which they alone know how to prepare. 

 I hardly believe there is a New England town which needs 

 the advice given to a western town by Henry Ward Beecher, 

 who, on being informed that they were discussing the advis- 

 ability of organizing a church or a grange, and being told 

 that they could not agree as to what denomination to choose, 

 replied : " Organize a grange ; you can all preach there." 



And one opportunity which has been taken advantage ot 

 in the past, and is ever open. No country has ever pro- 

 duced a better class of honest yoemanry than the tillers of 

 the soil of old New England. She has produced men and 

 women who have been an honor to her nation, and whose 

 names are written in the history of our nation in letters so 

 indelible as to never be erased. 



