54 FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 



be written on the plow. No better indicator of a country's advancement is 

 needed than its plow, and the knowledge of its use. I always calculate I 

 have a good workman if he knows how to thoroughly rig up a plow for all 

 occasions. Evolution in another form is trenching on our domain. Chem- ■ 

 istry imitates all the products that seem desirable. Do you want raspberry, 

 strawberry, pine apple, or orange extracts? The chemist steps behind the 

 soda fountain, and will mix 3^ou something that is better, apparently, than 

 the fruit itself would make. Do you want butter? He will evolve it for you. 

 Do you want honey? He can make it from glucose, or feed that to the bees 

 and they will make it. I understand that eggs are made by scientific meth- 

 ods, but class it as a canard, with the wooden nutmeg scandal. There is 

 evolution in cheese, but we prefer the old fashioned kind that was driven to 

 market, over the lignum vitas skim milk variety, that has done so much 

 injury to the dairy interests. 



The impetus given by the application of steam to the industries has made 

 itself felt in our calling. Printing has preserved the crystalized wisdom of 

 the past. Invention has lessened the labor of the farm, and to-day it is to 

 the man of intelligence, more than of brawny muscle, that we are to look for 

 good farming. The last fifty years have shown the greatest advance. In 

 horticulture great strides have been made. A large variety of vegetables are 

 cultivated and used as food that were then unknown. Hybridizing in tree, 

 plant, bulb and flower, natural selection and survival of the fittest have 

 given us delicious fruits and healthful food, and canning, evaporating and 

 preserving have kept them the year round. Some one has duplicated Har- 

 vey's discovery of circulation by tilling the soil. Specialists are studying 

 insect life. Breeding of improved animals has increased. Pomology, pisci- 

 culture, forestry, irrigation, agricultural chemistry, in fact, all of the indus- 

 tries connected with agriculture are being made the subject of investigation 

 by learned men, and it is to be hoped that our Government will give it 

 recognition by assigning it a cabinet position. Low prices and competition 

 ai'e demanding new methods. Dairymen are eliminating unworthy animals, 

 and "looking into the churn." Horsemen ask for a record of performance. 

 Capital is draining the fields and brains fertilizing them. The school, col- 

 lege, grange, press and institute are contributing their aid to the farmer of 

 to-day, and let it not be said of us, as of Jerusalem, " But ye would not." 

 The most important question to us now is not so much one of machinery as 

 increased fertility and more thorough cultivation. 



"We revere the memory and cherish the virtues of the pioneers of fifty years 

 ago, who toiled with the spinning wheel, flax brake, hand rake, wooden 

 mold-board plow, sickle, scythe, cradle and ax, but cannot be satisfied with 

 their fiints for matches, tallow dips, sanded floors, home-spun clothing, and 

 simple methods of farming. They are gone, with the Walker line of stages 

 and the red packet canal boat. We live in a different age. Insect enemies, 

 climatic changes, competition, all require us to be on the alert. For us 

 ships are loading with the products of other nations. Immense trains go 

 thundering across the continent, bearing the fruits of the soil. Electricity 

 gives the signals around the world, and is being harnessed to suit the needs 

 of agriculture. Light and darkness, heat and cold, storm and sunshine, ice 

 and steam, wind and water, man's reasoning powers and physical capacity 

 are to pay tribute to God's infinite wisdom, to whom belongs the earth and 

 the fullness thereof. 



Mr. Ball : Much of the drudgery of farm life can be saved by thought. 



