BANQUET TO GARDENERS. . 47 
and whose careers of usefulness may bear still more elo- 
quent testimony. 
The real usefulness of such a course as we propose to 
give, depends on the really useful character of the subjects 
taught. To decide what they should be, involves many 
considerations, and the question must be viewed from many 
sides. Vegetable gardening is by no means the least im- 
portant branch of gardening, and it is a branch which Mr. 
Shaw expressly indicates as worthy of being taught in the 
Botanical Garden. We have with us this evening one who 
might speak to our profit and entertainment on any branch. 
of horticulture, for he has long been identified with horti- 
cultural work of many kinds; but those who know him 
best reckon it not one of his smallest accomplishments that 
he has taken a piece of desert sand on the shore of one of 
the Great Lakes, and made it to blossom as the rose, — and. 
more particularly to produce undreamed-of quantities of 
choice vegetables which find a remunerative market many 
hundreds of miles from the spot where they were grown, — 
even in our own city. It is my privilege, gentlemen, to in- 
troduce to you Hon. J. M. Smith, the President for many 
years of the Wisconsin Horticultural Society, whom, I am 
sure, you will agree with me, we shall be glad to listen to 
on the subject of the educational needs of a market gar- 
dener. 
MR. SMITH. 
Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen: The question your 
Chairman sent to me is — ** What ought a market garden- 
er to know?’ If I should attempt to tell you all that 
a market gardener ought to know, I should occupy a great 
deal of time. I should probably have to learn, myself, 
many things that I do not know ; and for fear that I might 
take more time than I ought to, or more than my share, 1 
went to work and wrote out a few brief hints and will read 
