218 
Annual Report of the 
ial manures entirely, thus showing that you are by no means de¬ 
pendent upon the barn-yard for fertilizers for the farm. 
We have just entered upon the last quarter of the nineteenth cen¬ 
tury, and if I retain my life and health until its close, I shall expect 
to see vast improvements made, not only in the cultivation of wheat, 
but in the fertility of the soil and in the quantity and quality of 
nearly or quite all of our crops. I shall see the noble specimens of 
different breeds of stock, now held by comparatively few, scattered far 
and wide throughout all of our state. I shall see the great mass of 
our farmers much better educated than most of us are to-day. I 
shall still see some who, like balky mules, refuse to take one step in 
advance until they are compelled to do so by a force that it is im¬ 
possible to resist. But these will be the small minority, and they 
will grow less and less as the years advance. 
I shall see homes made more comfortable and pleasant than they 
are to-day. Farmer’s sons will not be so anxious to desert the farm 
for a clerkship, or law-office, as heretofore. The books, the papers, 
the music, and the comforts of a farmer’s home will be much more 
pleasant to them than the home of strangers. Fewer of them, after 
having borne their parents to their silent homes, will return to the 
old homestead, and sadly say, u This old place is all run down and 
worn out, and will not support us in comfort, and we must leave it 
for other business or other homes. But they will rather say: 
“ Father has made this a pleasant home, he has kept the farm im¬ 
proving for years and has so taught us, that we can still go on with im¬ 
provements, and make it still more pleasant as well as more profit¬ 
able than he was able to do; and so we will stay and make the old 
homestead our abiding place and our home.” There will be fewer 
pale-faced, care-worn wives and mothers seen upon the farm, toiling 
from early morning till late bed-time, until the daughters, warned 
by their mothers’ ceasless toil and labor, declare that they will never 
marry a farmer. 
I shall see the profession of the farmer elevated far above what it 
has ever been in the past, or is now, and not only financially but 
socially, morally, and intellectually. The aged man as he retires 
from the battle of life may look back upon the years not with sad¬ 
ness or regret, but thinking that he has done something for the ele¬ 
vation and comfort of his race. The young man may look forward 
to the profession, full well assured that he is in possession of a bus- 
