INDIANA HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 591 



thousand people in Allen County, and sometimes we have only sixty in 

 some of these meetings. Do we get any benefit? Certainly. Twenty years 

 ago we raised twenty bushels of corn. Now we average forty. What is 

 the cause? Agricultural educatiou. By what? People going to agri- 

 cultural institutes, hear what the different men have to say, go home and 

 try it, and the man who doesn't go to the institute looks over the fence 

 and copies how it is done. This is like bread cast upon the water. It 

 will return in large quantities. 



Prof. Van Deman: It is certainly a fact that is being recognized all 

 over the country, that the man who tills the soil has one of the most 

 elevated callings in the world. I think it is the most elevated calling. 

 And should we go into a life work like this without training, without 

 a special education, and a special preparation? It is unreasonable to 

 think of such a thing. I had to get what I know by digging it right out 

 of the soil, and getting what I could out of books. We are glad you are 

 working on this great subject of getting the best results out of the country 

 life. Certainly we have a wonderful problem. 



Now I remember two cases that are in point in this general discussion 

 with regard to the knowledge which one will have by having an agricul- 

 tural education. When I was teaching in Kansas, in the agricultural col- 

 lege there in the 70's there was a certain young man in the class, we 

 had thirty-five young men and women in the same class. There was one 

 young man whose aim was to be a lawyer, and after three or four days 

 he came to me after the close of the day and said, "Professor, I wish 

 you would excuse me from taking those lectures in practical horticulture. 

 You know I wish to be a lawyer." I told him that I knew tb^^t. He went 

 on and said, "I feel that I am wasting my time and that 1 do not need 

 these lectures." I said to him, "Mr. Wood, don't you expect to have a 

 home some day when you are through college, and are a lawyer living in 

 town?" He said, "Yes, 1 am very likely to." I said, "If you are going 

 to have a home you want to know how to beautify that home, and to 

 take care of it, and' you need this training." Well that was a new 

 thought to him, and so I told him to come back in a week and talk to me. 

 In two or three days he was back in the classroom, and he told me 

 that lie didn't have any more to say. 



There was a young lady in the class taking a course, in fact there 

 were quite a number of young ladies in that class, and among other 

 things we were taking grafting. They took it along with the rest of 

 the ctass. Several years after this at one of our institutes I met one of 

 these young ladies and she said to me. "I suppose you never thought I 

 would ever make any use of that grafting, but I have and I would not 

 have missed it for anything." They thought this practical information 

 had been of great benefit to them. Of course grafting was only one of 

 the many things that were taught during the term. 



