farming. I am perfectly sure that it does not. The farms that have been abandoned lie in localities where it is utterly unprofitable to cultivate them, and, while they have produced in former days admirable crops of fruit and hay and cattle, when the Massachusetts farmer could sell his cattle in a profitable market, the time for those products have gone by, and these farms are so far away from the markets that it is utterly impossible to cultivate them to any profit. That they are entitled to respect and affection there is no question, as the birthplaces of some of the most remarkable men ever known in the Commonwealth. The great statesmen who came from the Connecticut river region to Boston to conduct the affairs of the State, like Governor Strong and his companions, were born on the farms in that section of the Commonwealth. Now, many of those farms have been abandoned because the attention of the young men has been drawn to the farms lying further West, and to the great centres of trade in New England; but, if you will take any agricultural section of Massachusetts, you will find that in that section there are more leading and powerful men raised to-day than there were fifty years ago. I do not mean to say that any one town does this, but take any section or any tier of towns, and you will find going out from those towns to New York and to the other large cities of the country more great merchants and professional men than ever before. New York, Chicago, Boston and every large city are filled with notable instances of country boys who are conducting our great enterprises. I could find in any given section as many able and controlling men to-day as there were fifty years ago, in proportion to the population.

Now, so far as the rearing of distinguished men is concerned, that is my answer. The farms that have been abandoned have been abandoned because they lie in such localities that it is no earthly use to try to carry them on; and they now lie there ready for occupation by pleasureseekers, by persons who want beautiful localities, which they can find on those farms, and by men who want a place at a small cost. But meanwhile the farming interests of Massachusetts have increased enormously in value. Let me illustrate. The aggregate value of the farms in the Com

monwealth has increased more than double in the last twenty years. The cultivated acres have also increased, from 881,402 in 1865, to 939,260 in 1885. The amount of land devoted to market gardening has also increased, from 3,988g acres valued at $1,024,286 in 1875, to 8,8617 acres valued at $3,088,826 in 1885. The value of the products of the farm has increased from $37,073,034 in 1875, to $47,756,033 in 1885. It is important to know of what this increase consists. In 1885 the crop of strawberries amounted to 3,930,710 quarts, valued at $406,895; the crop of tomatoes amounted to 322,056 bushels, valued at $164,307; the cabbage crop amounted to 11,499,817 heads, valued at $556,518; the amount of milk produced was 72,528,628 gallons, valued at $10,312,762, the yield having doubled in value and quantity in ten years. The hay crop in 1885 was valued at $7,289,829. You cannot find a single branch of agriculture except the growing of wholesale crops, in which the Western farmers are competing with us that is not conducted profitably in the State of Massachusetts. Do you know any man who is devoting his attention to poultry, who does not make money out of it? I know that in Essex County (and, while I am very proud of Essex County, I do not undertake to say that it is the most important county in the world) I know that in that county every man who devotes himself to the raising of poultry makes money out of it. There is no man in Essex County who devotes himself to market gardening who does not find it a profitable business. There is no man who is devoted to the production of milk for the market, as an adjunct to his other business, who does not find that profitable; and, wherever you find in front of a farm-house door on a summer morning a cluster of milk cans sunning and airing themselves, you will be pretty sure to find a thriving household and good farming. And yet I am told that farming is on the decline, and that the farms of my own county are being deserted. I have in my desk at home returns from the town clerk of every town in that county, and in the whole county there were but two farms which had been abandoned; and the appearance of the farms themselves which are being carried on there, and which are devoted to specialties and carefully cultivated, indicates

everywhere a degree of prosperity of which the farmer ought to be proud.

I make these remarks because I am a little tired, going about as I do among the farm-houses and among the farmers, and witnessing the prosperity and uniform general contentment of the farmers themselves, and the good appearance of their buildings and land, I am a little tired, I say, of hearing the farmers of Massachusetts so continually reflected upon, and having the charge thrown in their faces that they are abandoning the homes of their fathers. There is no occasion for any comparison, not the slightest. Farming is a business which goes up and goes down everywhere. It oscillates, like every other business. There are many mills in Massachusetts to-day that are not making a profit; but they will come up again, they will revive; and, if any farmer is compelled to suspend his operations for a season, and wait for the new day to dawn, that day will as surely come as he is capable of waiting patiently for it.

I am happy of this opportunity to say this word or two, which I have said much more elaborately elsewhere, with regard to farming in our own section; because this is perhaps one of the last meetings of the Board that I shall be able to attend, as my term of office expires in February, and I shall undoubtedly be relegated to private life. But however that may be, I have said this as a parting word, to show my faith in the farming of the section of the country in which I live.

Mr. LYNDE. I would like to ask if it would be any advantage to those who are engaged in farming to have agriculture encouraged in the schools? Have we not competition enough now? In other words, are the boys who leave the farms and go to the cities any damage to the boys who remain at

home on the farm?

Dr. TWITCHELL. It is not competition we need, but intelligence. I care not how much we have, we want more of it. I do not urge agricultural education in the schools, pure and simple, but I do urge the inculcation of a love of natural things, which will give a boy, if he has a love for agriculture, a better knowledge how to do the work essential

to success.

Give the children a knowledge of those natural

things which they are handling every day in their lives. If they go to the cities, they will make better lawyers, better manufacturers, and those who have a love for agriculture will make better farmers.

Mr. FITCH. Is the competition of the farm products of the West an injury rather than a benefit to the New England farmer who is obliged to compete with his neighbors?

Dr. TWITCHELL. I say it is a benefit, because, unless pressure is brought to bear on a man, he will never be developed.

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Mr. FrтCH. I find I neglected to answer one question. suggested by the lecturer. He asked whether the farmers were giving up, or whether it was by their neglect that the Union was not doing all it might do. The point is this. A great many farmers are folding their arms, and crying out to the grange, to this Board, to every place in creation, Help us!" They are willing to be helped. It is time they were willing to help themselves. Perhaps a quarter of the members of the Milk Producers' Union, which numbers about fifteen hundred men, have not during the last year and a half paid their dues. Why? Many of them have said, "The Union will fix the price of milk, whether I pay my dues or not." They were willing to be helped, but were not willing to do anything themselves. Others have stayed outside, have not joined the Union, because, as they have said, they could conduct their own business.

Governor HOARD. I would like to say a word or two, if you will allow me. Dr. Loring has spoken of the abandonment of New England farms. I want to assure you that this problem is just as serious in Wisconsin as it is in New England. The difficulty with us all through the United States is the abandonment of the farmer, not the abandonment of the farm. Why, we have some men in Wisconsin who are absolutely committed to the abandonment of all that is intelligent and sensible. I have a hundred and twentyfour patrons in one of my creameries, and I have studied those men as I never studied anything in my life. I want to give you, in just a moment, a sharp, clear-cut object lesson. We take in that creamery the milk from a hundred

and twenty-four men, separate it, manufacture it, market the butter, and charge them four cents a pound. We have been enabled to secure the very best market of any creamery in that section, thus enhancing their returns. Now, the same sky is above these men, the same soil beneath them, the same market in front of them, and the same creamery behind them. But what is the difference? At the head of that list stands a man by the name of McPherson, with thirty-five COWS. I paid him last year sixty-three dollars and fifty-one cents for the earnings of each of those cows, and he had the skim-milk beside. I have paid him as high as seventy dollars. At the foot of the list is a man to whom I paid forty dollars last year, and I have paid him thirty-five dollars. He has twenty cows. He is troubled with abandonment. I tell you there is nothing under God's heaven that will help that man except a funeral. He is a gone case. Now, the first man was intelligent enough twelve years ago to look into this matter. He came into my office one day, and said, “I have got tired of keeping cows that make only one hundred and fifty pounds of butter apiece; what shall I do?" I said, "McPherson, I am glad to hear you say that; we will study it together." He had a herd of grade Shorthorns, and they were giving him one hundred and fifty pounds of butter apiece a year. If he undertook to crowd them any more, he crowded the whole thing into flesh. I said, "Let us get a good herd of cows," and so we went at it. The result is that he has a herd of cows to-day that make an average of over three hundred pounds of butter per cow, and there is not a penny of additional cost for the support of the bodies of those cows; I doubt very much if they cost so much. The old herd averaged about eleven hundred pounds, and his present herd average about eight hundred and fifty or nine hundred. Now, it cost this other man that got only forty dollars a head thirty dollars to keep his COWS. I have every item of that man's expenses and history. It did not cost very much investigation to get it.

QUESTION. Have you got his pedigree?

Governor HOARD. He is a scrub, and a scrub has no record. Now, I never talked so sharply to any other man as I have to him. He has left that creamery half a dozen times.