ADDRESS. 



Ladies and Gentlemen ! 



Or rather and better may I not say, Brother and 

 sister farmers of my good old native County of Norfolk ! 

 You of the bone and sinew of the land, that gather here 

 from those beneficent labors that feed alike the prince 

 and the peasant, the toiling artisan and the singing poet, 

 and who thus like Atlas of olden fable bear up the great 

 world on your shoulders ! And ye gentler, fairer ones, 

 who throng hither from the homes that you bless and 

 brighten, with tokens of noble usefulness from farm house 

 and dairy, — with the various attractions of cunning 

 needlework or the fragrant loveliness of flowers ! You 

 whose blessed office it is to soothe and aid as help- 

 meets — present or prospective — the harder sex, and thus 

 bear full half the burdens ! I rejoice in the honor of 

 meeting you hero to-day, as you come up from your 

 weary yet worthy labors to joyful festival, and of con- 

 gratulating you on the nobility and glory of your calling, 

 and at the various joys and delights of the farmer's life ; 

 that it has its feast days as well as its work days, its 

 fascinations as well as its hardships, its thrilling poetry 

 as well as its dull and dreary prose. Indeed, the very 

 word " farm " has music in it to my ears, and, from my 

 boyhood, there were but few joys that seemed to my 



