131 



Haverhill homestead until at the age of thirty years, I was com- 

 pelled to leave it, greatly to my regret. 



Ever since, if I have envied anybody, it has been the hale, 

 strong, farmer, who could till his own acres, and if he needed 

 help could afford to hire it, because he was able to lead the 

 work himself. I have lived to see a great and favorable change 

 in the farming population of Essex County. The curse of in- 

 temperance is now almost unknown among them ; the rum-seller 

 has no mortgage on their lands. As a rule they are intelligent, 

 well-informed, and healthily interested in public affairs, self 

 respectful and respected, independent landholders fully entitled, 

 if any class is, to the name of gentlemen. 



It may be said that they are not millionaires and that their 

 annual gains are small. But on the other hand the farmer rests 

 secure, while other occupations and professions are in constant 

 fear of disaster. His dealing directly and honestly with the 

 Almighty is safer than speculation; his life is no game of 

 chauce, and his investments in the earth are better than in stock 

 companies and syndicates. 



As to profits, if our farmers could care less for the comforts 

 of themselves and their families, if they could consent to live as 

 their ancestors once lived, and as the pioneers in new countries 

 now live, they could with their present facilities, no doubt 

 double their income. But what a pitiful gain this would be at 

 the expense of the decencies and refinements which make life 

 worth living. No better proof of real gain can be found than 

 the creation of pleasant homes for the comfort of age and the 

 happiness of youth. When the great English critic, Mathew 

 Arnold, was in the country on returning from a visit in Essex 

 Count}', he remarked that, while the land looked to him rough 

 and unproductive, the landlord's houses seemed neat and often 

 elegant, with an air of prosperity about them. "But where," he 

 asked, "do the tenants, the working people live?" He seemed 

 surprised when I told him that the tenants were the landlords, 

 and the workers the owners. 



Let me return my sincere thanks to the Essex Agricultural 

 Society for the kind message conveyed in thy letter, and with 

 the best wishes for its continued prosperity and usefulness, I 

 am truly thy friend, 



John G. "Whittier. 



The 63rd Institute was held at Peabody Institute, Danvers, 

 Jan. 11, 1889, Hon. J. J. H. Gregory, of Marblehead, being the 

 speaker, on the subject of "Utilizing the Waste of the Farm," 

 which he defined as "a loss occasioned from a lack of compre- 

 hensiveness in our planning," and a leak as "the imperfect 

 carrying out of plans." Of innumerable farm wastes, he con- 



