WARSAW HORTICULTUEAL SOCIETY 317 



work he unites, in a perfectly natural way and with evident fore- 

 thought, " a journey on earth with that of a search for heaven." 



Some people thought that Buuyan was crazy, but it was only 

 the fusing of truth with fancy, in order to make it potent. There 

 are many firm believers in the theory that people are, at times, crazy 

 — fanatic, and facts are often cited in the support of this belief ; but 

 a wise man may step backward olf a porch, or into a mud-puddle ; a 

 great philosopher may hunt for the spectacles which are in his hand, 

 or upon his nose, and the hunter may shoot himself or his dog, and 

 yet not be crazy. 



A working girl, so industrious and faithful, that for ten years 

 she had been constantly employed to feed a clothes-knife, one day 

 watched that same knife come slowly down upon her own hand. 

 Too late she awoke from her train of thought to find her hand gone. 



One of our most distinguished philosophers teaches j|i an insti- 

 tution near a canal. Walking along the path one morning, absorbed 

 in thought, he walked deliberately into the canal, and was only 

 brought to his senses by the water and mud, and by the absurdity of 

 the situation. 



Again, our mail collectors, it is said, fiad in the iron boxes along 

 the streets all sorts of papers, and many times the most unlikely 

 articlesi, which have been put there by some hand from whose motion 

 the mind had become, for the moment, detached. A deed, a mort- 

 gage, a theatre ticket, a glove, the spectacle cases go into the box, 

 and the letter, meanwhile, remaining in the pocket of the writer. 



This brief lunacy, or absent-mindedness, only proves that the 

 individual is a deep thinker, and perchance, a specialist; and this, 

 gentlemen, is just what leads to success in our pursuits of life; and 

 if great men make these mistakes, I trust you will excuse me, and 

 one another, for occasional mistakes in horticulture. 



In the year 1860, I began the orchard business. I entered into 

 it with an energy and determination to succeed. 1 planted seventy- 

 five trees with twenty-five diff'^rent varieties of apples, and for the 

 greatest display by one producer, can defy competition. The same 

 year I started a nursery of seedling peaches, growing one year 

 from the pitts, and the next year, 1861, planting my first peach 

 orchard of 350 trees. They proved a very profitable investment. 

 In 1867, I planted 400 apple trees — all winter varieties — of which 

 Ben Davis predominated. The next spring, 1868, T interplanted 

 three peach trees to each apple tree, or 1,200 peach trees. They all 

 came into bearing young, and for some years proved highly remun- 

 erative, but I lived to see them nearly all destroyed, not with age, 

 but from several causes — overbearing, atmospheric troubles and 

 insect pests. Since then I have planted four other apple orchards 

 and one peach orchard. The whole number of trees planted, I can- 

 not give, as I am, of late years, constantly replanting my orchards. 



