ADDRESS. 



Mr. President : — I propose to speak in a practical way 

 of oar Indebtedness to the Farm. My subject might 

 well be suggested by the display which is this day made 

 by the farmers of Essex. These fruits and flowers, 

 tempting to the taste, give us some notion of what the 

 earth yields to furnish our tables and gladden our homes. 

 No one can look on the wonderful variet}^ of Nature's 

 gifts, without gratitude. We may well take satisfaction 

 and be filled with honest pride as we behold the lowing 

 herds, the bleating flocks, the patient ox, the knowing 

 horse, and not the least the fowls that give grace and 

 beauty to every well appointed farm. It is a grand pro- 

 cession that has come up through all the thoroughfares of 

 Essex to join in this farmers' holiday, and everything we 

 see is a testimony to the fact that Nature is always ren- 

 dering tribute to man. This exhibition of machines and 

 tools, and instruments, shows the skill and wisdom of 

 man in devising ways of gaining more largely and with 

 greater ease the products of the earth. We are im- 

 pressed with the fact that these gifts are so abundant 

 that we may never exhaust the bounty of Nature. Every 

 year great harvests grow out on the prairies, which all 

 the power of man could never cut and garner without 

 the use of the reaping machine and the thresher. When 

 the earth is honestly tilled, it becomes a problem which 

 exhausts our skill to know how to gather and transport 



