Adaptations in Hokticulturh. 77 



are run to dairy products, beef and porlc. The farmers buy bet- 

 ter flour than they can raise, and at cheaper rates than they can 

 raise it. We cannot compete with the new western lands in 

 wheat. We can raise some wheat, and must continue to do so, 

 but we want to catch at a glance the possibilities and adaptations 

 of our own circumstances, and leap at once to our true position. 

 We must not wait to be driven to it by a long agony of mis- 

 fortune and failure. To pass from low culture and coarse prod- 

 ucts to higher culture and finer products, is the destiny of all 

 agricultural communities which continue prosperous. The very 

 farm of John Johnson of Geneva, N. Y., so celebrated in the annals 

 of successful farming on which its owner grew rich by intelligent 

 labor almost beyond precedent, has passed out from under the old 

 rich crops of wheat and corn entirely, and is now put to higher 

 uses. So with the system of farming among us. Our best men 

 are getting away from grain, driven to it, perhaps, by a rugged 

 road, but we want to spring into our higher position as if we 

 were born to it. Let the intelligent men of our state look to 

 these things. I do not advise a sudden change to any one, but I 

 advise an intelligent looking forward to a state of things which 

 will surely come. 



A newly planted orchard will require a few years of care to 

 bring it into bearing, and must receive it. Let no man plant one, 

 who will not give it this intelligent care. JIow nice it would be, 

 as we get old, and less able to perform our annual routine of 

 labor, in planting and harvesting, to have an orchard, planted 

 once for all, and which can be harvested leisurely in the cool of 

 autumn and marketed just as leisurely, and in the shade of which, 

 we can hide from the hot August suns, and the fruits of which, 

 will beguile our declining appetites and feed our families with the 

 best of good and healthful food. It is time for us to begin this 

 good work now. I believe that the horticultural interests of our 

 state are committed to a worthy class of nurserymen, that they 

 are watchful and vigilant, and that we have good reason to be 

 proud of these to whom we more especially look as advisers in 

 these matter.-^, in the great march of our own improvement. I pay 

 this tribute to them from the position of an outsider, and yet a 



