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rustic porch, the graceful trees which shade from sun and 

 shelter from the storm. Witliin, let it be the abode of domes- 

 tic joys and cultivated life. Let it have some sacred retreat, 

 where labor shall forget its irksome tasks, — where tired nature 

 shall find sweet repose, — where everything shall charm the 

 ear, delight the eye, or gratify the mind, — where shall be com- 

 fort, propriety and refinement, — not needing luxury or wealth, 

 but only *' that unbought grace " which neither gold can buy 

 nor station give, and which may breathe alike around the rich 

 man's stately mansion and the poor man's humble cottage. 

 Living thus, with trust in Heaven, with nurturing care for the 

 dear ones uj)on the earth, seeing God in nature, and recog- 

 nizing labor and its rewards as but the means and not the end, 

 the farmer will lead another and a higher life. Existence will 

 have a new meaning. There will be for him new heavens and 

 a new earth. Drought, and mildew, and blight may come, 

 but hope and happiness are left. He walks through life, it 

 may be amid storms, beneath clouds, surrounded by misfor- 

 tunes, beset by carking cares, yet seeing forms of light in the 

 gathering darkness, and drawing joy from out the very gloom. 



" The meanest floweret of the vale, 

 The simplest note that swells the gale, 

 The common air, the sun, the skies. 

 To him are opening Paradise." 



Gentlemen of the Society — Farmers of Essex: In what 

 pleasant places have your lines fallen to you — how goodly is 

 your heritage. It is not alone an occupation, healthful, profit- 

 able and useful ; it is not alone a home, pleasant, comfortable 

 and refined ; it is not alone an ancestry, the record of whose 

 pious deeds and heroic lives is far dearer than would be the 

 proudest escutcheon of heraldic vanity ; it is not alone a County, 

 populous aud rich, washed upon one side by the bounding 

 waves of the Atlantic, traversed by beautiful and fertilizing 

 streams, diversified all over with lake and forest, and swelling 

 hills and teeming vales, with all the great material interests of 



