112 NEW BRUNSWICK FORESTRY CONVENTION 



he has hitherto proved able to take care of himself ; but I notice Mr. Emmer- 

 son's Address is to be on " Opportunity and Outlook." I am certain he may 

 have the " outlook/' but he will not have the " opportunity." 



I had intended to take a little time to prove my right to be here, that is 

 to say, to speak on behalf of Agriculture. I met a gentlemen this morning, 

 who took a very prominent and a very creditable part in the programme to- 

 day, and he told me that he would like the opportunity to hear me very 

 much, but that he wished he had brought with him another gentleman, 

 naming the other gentleman, because, he said, the two of us could say more 

 on anything we did not know, than anyone he knew. It is under those eir- 

 cumstances that I come before you at this late hour, and under this difficulty 

 to speak. But I shall not trespass at any great length most prosy people 

 say these things as I am saying them now, so you need not take too much 

 stock in them, you know. 



At first it seems singular that in a great Convention like this, which is 

 primarily called for considering the question of lumbering, the farmer could 

 be in any way interested in the matter at all. He is a good deal removed 

 from the business, but if you go back to the farmer's calling, trace the nat- 

 ural history of it, you would find it very easy to make out his case, and to 

 show to an audience like this, that it requires grave consideration in settling 

 what is to be done after this Convention adjourns, as to the effect of the 

 whole matter upon the agriculture of the country. 



The Creation of the world, Ladies and Gentlemen, I thought, having 

 so much time, I would commence away back so far as I have any recollec- 

 tion of it, had only one purpose in view, that was, to produce a Man, and 

 in that, of course, was included Woman also. W^ell then, when the world 

 was finished and ready for man, Nature gave up the work of 

 creation, and said, in effect, to man : ' Now, you go on with 

 the work that has been brought thus far forward. ' Nature 

 does not finish anything ; Nature ends with producing the ma- 

 terial, and the earth, and man, and leaves it for man to carry on the 

 work. Nature builds no railways, no mighty steamships, none of these 

 great works that manifest the modern labor of mankind ; all that is a 

 delegated operation, given to man to carry forward, after the 

 main part of the work had been finished. But man has not 

 proved true to his trust ; man, instead of becoming the builder, 

 as he should, became at once a destroyer. He has destroyed almost 



