Year: 1877

England Agricultural Society, made At


the Fair fn Portland, on Tuesday, Sept.


4, 1877.


Gentlemen We have returned after the lapse
of m any years, to hold our annual New England
Exhibition, IN connection with the leading Agri-
cultural Society of of the best farming States
IN the Union. Maine is attractive to every stu
dent and observer of American agriculture. Her
broad Territory is diversified with all the variety
which mountain and valley, and forest, field and
picturesque seacoast can create. Soil admirably
adapted to all the northern crops can be found
within her limits. and cooled by the hfe-giving
breezes which blow from arctic bays and gulfs, 1t
sprngs into new and sudden life from the steady
repose OF winter, as the breath OF summer warns
its slopes and aes into fru tfulness and beau
W. A State of great resources in every depart
men tot economic life she possesses rare opportuni-
ties Tor future growth and advancement. Situat-
ed in the latitude best adapted to hu man exerton
her forests and streams her land grazing and ara
BILE, her harbors and geographical location, hold
out large and abundant promise to all who would
practically apply their energy and skull. Not yet
developed by intense activity and the heat of
overwrought business into height of feverish
social endeavor, she maintains uniform and rea-
sonable prosperity, amidst the fluctuations which
elevate and depress the more uneasy and less for
tunate. And IN her organization as State she
presents an enviable picture Of widespread COM
FORT of general popular Intelligence, stesdness of
purpose, hrmness OF conviction, and moral deter
mination worthy to be admired and cherished
everywhere. Maine is great agricultural State;
and while we have gathered here to contemplate
TINS striking illustration Of her agricultural wealth
and development, and to learn BY Conference the
best laws which govern our calling as farmers, il
is our most gratifying duty to remember what
that community Is which draws its life from this
great occupation. We shall be allowed, doubt
not, to pause a moment in the beginning, and
without mourning the displeasure of the modern
critic, who will complain because in every age of


the world the relations of agriculture to State and
society have been admired furnishing an ensi-
able opportunity for the development of strength
and the attainment of rational and healthy happi-
ness, to repeat the pleasing thought once more.
We shall be tolerated, trust, while we congrstn-
tate ourselves that agriculture still holds tnat place
assigned it by the wise and strong men in every
age of the world, and denied it by those only who
see in all the industry of life nothing more than
the material results of toll and effort. ~


We can indeed rejoice in the evidence lying oil
around US, OF its success IN the community which
we represent. And without discussing the meth
DDS by which these attainments have been reached
without entering into the investigation of cultiva-
ton, and crops and animals and farm manage
ment which belongs to occasions like this, We can
with propIety remind ourselves that We gath
cred IN the emporium OF great agricultural Com
monwealth whose intellectual and moral develop
ment comes of that system Of life which the fath-
ers planted the rural districts of New England.


1t is great thing to be able to say that the farms
of this State into which these hills and valleys are
divided, are occupied by o contented, intelligent,
and happy people; and to the thoughtful observer
il should be a matter of interest and qualification


that theirs is q community mindful of its honest
obligations, true TO the best principles of free
civil organization, faithful to the demands Of re-
hgion and education, economical in public and
private affairs,-a community comprehending the
value and meaning of self government, and of the
individual selfreliance and independence on which
II rests.


IL Is with unusual satisfaction that contem-
plate these characteristics of a rural community
like this, occupying q somewhat sparsely settled
territory, aud representing the general condition
of the agricultural people of our land.
The serious and painful anticipations of q
return OF our farms to their original will
derness, and of farmers to q primitive barbar-
ism, have attracted the attention not only of
the student OF agriculture, but of the student of
mans social and civil condition. We know that
in times past, the isolated farm houses of our
country have sent into every walk in life q power
tui and intelligent body of men, who have estab-
hshed our nationality, developed industry,
guided our councils. We have been told BY the
profound and philosophical who have come from
other lands to investigate the institutions of our
own, that the vital force of our republic springs
from the occupancy and ownership OF the soil. in
such a way as to mark the independence of the
owner, and TO impress him with a sense of his
civil duties and opportunities. Time was when
the relations existing between the rural homes OF
America. scattered, isolated, lonely as they were
and all the intellectual activity of the country
were so intimate that almost every river of know-
edge howing across the land seemed to find its
fountain head in one Of these homely sbodes
lhelr response to every great expression, their aid
to every great popular endeavor, were prompt and
powerful. From the scattered homesteads along
the seaboard to the last dwelling ON the frontier
between whose hearthstone and the cole the
smoke OF no white mans cottage curled, might be
found the homes of those great men who preserved
and transmitted the characteristics, which lie at
the foundation of our national strength and great
ness. And these homes were part of that social
organization which was strengthened by its rural
repose and its daily toll and trials and which has
become AS much more than all others the type of
American civilization, as the country is broader
than the town, and as the rural population out
numbers the masses in the streets of our large
cities As it was in the beginning, so it is now
The country still feeds the town and will continue


10 supply its life giving food long as it preserves
Its sturdy ways of individual Independence, and
refuses TO abandon Its calm and undisturbed modes
OF lie and thought for more active scenes and in
fuences. New England farm is a good home
stlil, farm standing apart in all the dignity Of its
independent organlzation-ah home founded upon
kindly recognition of mutual obligations, and
pressing and inevitable sense of duty devolving
upon each member of so narrow a commu nity-s
nome ready to receive the Influences of the library
anu the church, the schoohouse and the lecture
room, anu capable OF carrying all these influences
INTO lis own retreat to perfect and enjoy them
there.


have called your attention to these character
isucs OF New England rural life, and this condi-
ton OF the isolated homes which have always
abounded here, because their defects and trials
have been from time to time earnestly set forth,
and because considerable intellectual ingenuity
has been exercised to find remedy for the sup
posed evil. Twenty years ago of the bright
and popular writers of Massachusetts, drew q pic
ture of farm life here, dismal. that if true, il
should have deferred every person of nte lligence
and taste from falling within its influences or
adopting its modes. The hard and homely fare
had nourshed hard and angular forms; the de-
grading associations had DESTROYED the dsport.
ment, and deprRved the intercourse and dalled
the sensiblllties. More recently these views have
been repeated in somewhat modified form, with
the addition of some deeper objections to the so-
clal and domestic life of the farmer 1t is nov
suggested that 1.-The young man who takes his
young wife to an isolated farmhouse dooms her and
himself and their children to an un wholesome un-
satisfactory and vacant existence - and that the
depressing influences of farm life can only be
overcome by abandoning the farm ss al abiding
place and resorting to villages for relaxation and
relief That the isolated farm has its trials do