No. 4.] NEW ENGLAND AGRICULTURE. 91 



Arts. It gives me a great deal of pleasure to have the 

 honor of presenting to you at this time President Athek- 

 TON, who will speak to us on the subject "The future of 

 New England agriculture." 



President Atherton. Gentlemen of the Board : It is a 

 great pleasure to stand before a Massachusetts audience, 

 for I am a Massachusetts boy, and I never come across the 

 line into ^Massachusetts without recalling the days that I 

 spent as a boy on the farm in Essex County. I think my 

 symi)athies and associations fairly entitle me to go a little 

 beyond, and speak of the schools of New England, for I 

 spent the first years of my life in New England ; went 

 to college in Connecticut and fitted for college and did my 

 first teaching in New Hampshire, so I think I have had a 

 pretty good round-about training., Then I served during 

 the war near the Twenty-third, Tw^enty-fourth and Twenty- 

 seventh Massachusetts regiments, so I have kept in pretty 

 close touch with New England. While in recent years my 

 field of duty has lain elsewhere, I have never lost my respect 

 and something of veneration for the old home. 



In speaking this afternoon on the subject which has been 

 assigned to me, I find myself lal)oring under some disad- 

 vantages that I am not responsil)le for altogether, and 

 wdiich I think I shall have to charge to our friend Sessions. 

 I have to read from manuscript, which is always a burden 

 and a weariness to the audience, if it is not to the speaker. 

 In fact, a New England audience as a rule does not care 

 very much about manuscript except on Sundays, and not 

 so much then as they used to. But the secretary was 

 careful to impress upon me that what I might prepare to 

 say to-day I must also prepare to look at in cold ])rint 

 afterwards. 



You will notice another thing, which is of a great deal 

 more importance ; the subject seems to call for prophecy, 

 but I make no claim to the gift of prophecy. The only 

 thing I have hoped I might be al)le to do was in some 

 measure to state the conditions in the midst of which we 

 are living and which are likely to continue, and then we 

 may judge for ourselves what measures must be adopted in 

 order to meet these conditions wisely, and from them secure 

 the largest possible results. 



