118 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



ence to the operations of an entire year, as far as they relate 

 to the cultivation of staple crops. His investment, so to 

 speak, is made in the spring ; his returns cannot be gathered 

 until autumn ; and, in the mean time, his best calculations 

 and most wisely directed energies may fail of their expected 

 reward, through variations in world-wide conditions respect- 

 ing which he can have neither foreknowledge nor control, 

 while other producers can, in a measure, adapt their oper- 

 ations to conditions as they change from day to day or 

 month to month. But, as has been already pointed out, 

 while the New England farmer can no longer reckon him- 

 self as an equally favored producer of those staples which 

 are subject to world-wide competition, he has exceptional 

 local advantages of his own, as the near neighbor of great 

 industrial centres. He can produce apples of a quality and 

 flavor not surpassed if equalled anywhere in the world, for 

 the best of which there is always a demand at home and an 

 increasing demand abroad. He can produce poultry and 

 dairy products, for which there is a market the year round. 

 He can by constant replacing and care keep up the standard 

 of his orchards. He can raise an abundance of marketable 

 hay. He can with sure though slow profit re-forest his 

 woodlands and Avaste places with valuable kinds of timber, 

 instead of leaving them to the chance of white birch and 

 brambles. In very many localities he can, in addition to all 

 these, supply towns and cities and summer resorts with small 

 fruits, flowers and vegetables, according to the season. He 

 can, it is to be hoped, under coming changes of legislation, 

 once more raise wool at a profit, and exclude the direct un- 

 derselling of neighbors who are ready to make use of our 

 markets but unwilling to share in paying our taxes. And, 

 while the returns for his laborious and exacting industry 

 will not, in single instances, be so large and brilliant as 

 those which come in exceptional cases to men engaged in 

 other pursuits, I firmly believe that there is no other occu- 

 pation in which a man possessing the qualities and exercis- 

 ing the virtues which I have named can, with an equal 

 amount of capital, secure, on the average, so comfortable 

 and happy a home for himself and his family, give his sons 

 and daughters so good a start in life with a sound constitu- 



