14 BOAED OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



respect. Wherever known, which is throughout the world, 

 she is noted for her hospitality, her latchstring is alw^ays out, 

 and her citizens are not only glad, but they esteem it a 

 privilege, to open their doors and their hearts whenever 

 visitors from abroad enter her borders. While we may not 

 be able to entertain upon such an elaborate scale as many 

 larger and wealthier places, we always do the best we can, 

 and do that cheerfully ; and it gives me great pleasure, 

 to-day, to be permitted in behalf of the people of New^bury- 

 port to welcome to our city the Massachusetts State Board 

 of Agriculture. 



It gives me pleasure for two reasons : First, His Excel- 

 lency the Governor is the president ex-officio of your Board, 

 and we always take delight in honoring the Governor of the 

 Commonwealth ; and we take special interest in the present 

 Governor, for when visiting our city prior to his first election 

 he made many friends among our citizens, so that when he 

 came before them asking for their votes we gave him a good 

 majority, which w^e greatly increased at the last election, and 

 which, I believe, will assume larger proportions in the fall 

 of 1895. It gives me pleasure in the second place to 

 welcome your Board, l)ecause you are the representatives 

 of the class on whom, more than any other, our country 

 is dependent for its prosperity, — the farmers, the tillers 

 of the soil, those who provide us w^th our flour and grain, 

 with our vegetables and meat, and without whom we could 

 not well exist. When the crops are abundant and the 

 farmers are prospering, all classes, the manufacturers, the 

 merchants, the mechanics and the laborers, reap the benefit 

 of their prosperity. When the crops are poor and the 

 farmers are not prospering, the w^hole country sufl'ers accord- 

 ingly. We have heard a great deal about protection for 

 various manufacturing industries, while the farmers, who 

 should be protected above all others, are almost, if not quite, 

 forgotten. While the wealthy capitalist transfers his riches 

 into government bonds and other like securities, locking 

 them up in safety deposit vaults, thereby escaping the 

 assessors' doom, the farmer's little wealth, consisting, as it 

 does, of his land, his buildings and his stock, is all spread 

 out before the eye of the assessor, and, as a general rule, the 



