106 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



world for all possible products of the soil. The call for good 

 and better foods, for good and better clothing, for good and 

 better houses and furniture, make an unfailing demand upon 

 the best energies of those who can produce the means of sat- 

 isfying these desires. Local agriculture, as has been already 

 said, has, for a long time, been unable to compete with the 

 great west in supplying the staples of meat and cereal foods. 

 But the almost unlimited variety of fresh and perishable 

 products, and products in the production of which are re- 

 quired care and skill and patience and training, furnish a 

 field for domestic and near-by agriculture, which is capable 

 of indefinite and almost unlimited expansion. Farming 

 used to be looked upon as a simple and unskilled routine, 

 which could be followed by the dullest as successfully as 

 by the brightest. Any kind of material was thought good 

 enough to make a farmer of. But all that is changed. It 

 is coming to l)e rightly recognized that there is no field of 

 human employment in which intelligence and training and 

 all the qualities which go to make success in other spheres 

 of activity can be more wisely used, or secure more worthy 

 rewards, than in agriculture. I doubt if an unsuccessful 

 farmer can be found in New England who has brought to 

 his business a fair average of industry, frugality, knowledge 

 and executive ability. 



I am fully persuaded, however, that, while the general 

 tendency to gather in city centres is natural and neces- 

 sary, it is in many individual cases unnatural and un- 

 desirable, and young people in the country ought so to 

 be taught. They see iyistances of great w^ealth or pros- 

 perity, and falsely dream that all dwellers in the city are 

 wealthy and prosperous. 



No one will deny that cities and towns offer many desira- 

 ble advantages, and many attractions which are not advan- 

 tages. Many a young man and young woman goes there 

 with profit ; but many more exchange a comfortable home 

 in the country for hardship, misery and ruin in the city. 

 Cities are the seats of great industries, great achievements, 

 great virtues and great charities ; but they are also full of 

 temptation for the unprepared, snares for the unwary and 

 destruction for the weaklings. They consume human life 



