WINTER MEETING, 1880. 31 



or in drilling; plaster for your pastures, if dry land, and plaster for your 

 wheat, drilled in with the seed, if the soil is light or has been overcropped. 



Lime on your low lands where vegetable muck abounds, if not overcharged 

 with water. If wet and springy you can only help them by thorough draining. 

 Lime on all sandy lands that show evidences of leaching. 



Salt on wheat and timothy, meadows or pasture, anywhere from one to two 

 barrels per acre. Besides being a worm destroyer it acts directly on the 

 root of the plant, giving tone and increased vigor, which is carried to the stalk 

 aud seed, making a heavier grain and an increase in quality and quantity. 



It being time for recess, the discussion on fertilizers was postponed to be 

 taken up later in the meeting. 



Thursday Afternoon Session. 



The exercises of the afternoon were opened by two excellent essays, the one 

 by Mrs. Thomas Hatching, on "the problem of life and how to solve it;" 

 the second by Miss Emily Benedict of Litchfield on "the hand, the head, and 

 the heart." Both of the papers were listened to with a great deal of interest 

 by the audience and added more than their share to the success of the meeting 

 We regret that the topics touched upon were not such as to come within the 

 scope of a horticultural report. 



Mr. J. S. Woodward of Lockport, N. Y., delegate from the Western New 

 York Horticultural Society, next auswered in the following paper the question 



HOW CAN A SUPPLY OF GRAPES FOR A FARMER'S HOME BE CHEAPLY 



AND SUCCESSFULLY GROWN? 



Nestled among the earliest recollections of my childhood, is the memory of 

 a picture. Two strong men were bearing a staff on their shoulders, from which 

 depended a magnificent cluster of grapes. My mouth often watered as I gazed 

 on the picture, but I somehow got the impression that only in the promised 

 land of the blessed should we be allowed to taste such delicious fruit, and it 

 was with much pleasure in maturer years I learned how easily it could be grown, 

 — if not in such monstrous clusters, at least in equal goodness, as pictured by 

 the fancy of my childhood. 



That your farmers have not each already a full supply, is to be explained 

 only that while they gaze on the beautiful fruit at the fairs or in the market, 

 and long for it, they, like the Israelites of old, Jack the courage, and would 

 rather go back to the flesh-pots than put forth the little exertion necessary to 

 possess it. They have not yet come to realize what is their due as cultivators of 

 the soil and commissaries of mankind ; nor are they yet aware of the enormous 

 loads of refreshing fruit the grape will give in payment for the little care aud 

 labor demanded, or the value of tin's fruit to them and their families. 



If in my attempt to answer the important question, I shall arouse their 

 attention and cause them to investigate, my desire will be gratified. 



To secure the desirable supply, certain conditions must be observed, and 

 though few and simple, like all of nature's rules, they must be heeded if we 

 would win success. 



You would not expect to gather a crop of corn, or wheat, or any other pro- 

 duce, where you had not prepared the soil with great labor, and tended the 

 growing crop carefully and well, amid the heat of midday as well as the early 

 and the later dews. You would not expect a lamb, calf or colt to grow into a 



