Proceedings of tub Faemers' Club. 371 



Mr. Aaron M. Powell. — I do not agree witli the gentleman that 

 we have nothing to do with this qnestion. If we shut our eyes to it, 

 so much the worse for us. The time has come when those who dis- 

 cuss agricultural affairs in this country should make up their minds 

 that the laborers should not constitute an exceptional class. I know 

 what agricultural life is. If it is so good, why is it that so many 

 young men are deserting the farms ? Why is it tliat agricultural 

 labor is dreaded? Why is it that the cities are being filled up so 

 rapidly ? If you fix a standard of labor for the farm, and give the 

 laborers their hours of leisure ; if you improve the condition of the 

 working classes, and educate their children ; if you will fix a limit 

 to their toil, it will be such a gain to the farming community that it 

 will make farm labor creditable and honorable, which it is not now 

 in the sight of other laborers. 



Prof. Jas. A. Whitney. — I hope this Club will not turn aside from 

 the discussion of strictly rural topics to theorizing on human rights, 

 or attempts to regulate labor. Some things have been said here 

 which, if reported strictly, would make us laughed at. It is fortu- 

 nate that some of the gentlemen who stand between us and a great 

 public act in the spirit of the old couplet about charity at home : 

 "Be to her faults a little blind: 

 Be to her virtues very kind." 



I move that the question of hours in farm labor be laid over indefi- 

 nitely. [This motion was seconded by Mr. Lyman, and carried.] 



American Opium. 

 The addi-ess of the gentleman, wdio made some remarks recently in 

 relation to the raising of poppies and the manufacture of opium, is 



How Should Tea be Made? 

 Mr. J. T. Ogden, Sidney, K. Y. — The people of the United States 

 annually pay $20,000,000, more or less, for the single article of tea. 

 Probably nine-tenths, if not ninety-nine hundredths, of the house- 

 wives and cooks, in preparing this beverage, boil the tea from thr^e 

 to ten minutes. But the chemist tells us that tea boiled is ruined ; 

 the essential principle, theine, being dissipated. Therefore the people 

 of the United States pay some $20,000,000 annually for the privilege 

 of drinking tannin and other injurious extractive matters, while the 

 tea, or theine, which alone is of any value, is utterly wasted. Twenty 



