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earnest, and the pupil is anxious enough to benefit by the benefits it 

 carries with it. The competilors of the " Agricultural Merit Com- 

 p^^t'tion" average sixty annually. 



The St. Hyacinthe School. 



I do not speak here of the dairy school at St. Hyacintho, for the 

 excellent reason that to mention it is enough ! It is successful ! Two 

 hundred and fifty to three hundred pupils ! Thank goodness I have 

 no reason to trouble myself about it, for it goes alone, like our classical 

 education It can do without our encouragement — in our speeches, at 

 least — for the farmer and his son attend it. It sows prosperity broad- 

 cast over the whole province, to which it furnishes specialists. I do 

 not include this among the establishments I commend to the care of 

 our farmers, for two reasons : first, because it is thoroughly appreci- 

 ated ; secondly, because, if we wish it to continue to be filled with 

 students, we must everywhere increase our production, improve our 

 farming, and make our farms yield more butter and cheese, both 

 articles of export trade that bring in the greatest profit. It is the 

 cultivation of the land that must be now attended to, since the final 

 making up of the goods is all right. Thus, we are providing by our 

 schools for the instruction, the need of which is making itself felt in 

 our rural districts, and we are acting, moreover, in concert with the 

 clergy, who, now more than ever, are entering with energy into the 

 arena. 



But our agriculture needs immediate aid ; we want a fountain of 

 prosperity that can be turned over our rural parts, especially whero 

 the loss of population has been most severe, and where a good many 

 farms arc without occupants. 



The Dairy Industry. 



Dairying here comes in, with wonderful effect, to the rescue. It 

 will prove to be an effective inducement to lead the farmer to improve 

 his cultivation. By its aid he may become a lender, instead of the 

 borrower he too often is ; by it, farms, the houses on which, entrusted 

 to the care of a neighbor, are under lock aud key, will find happy and 

 properous occupants ; by it, the desert caused in some of our parishes 

 by an exhaustive system of farming will become gay, and the popula- 

 tion dense where it is now scanty. Everywhere onr land will feed 



