1902.] DISCUSSION. 67 



institute platforms if you value the future success of the meet- 

 ings. Keep him at home, and make him stay there. And the 

 man with the big story, make him take a back seat until he 

 can carve his stories down to somewhere in the range of rea- 

 sonableness. Also keep at home the gloomy man and the 

 pessimist. The man who can see nothing but failure and 

 darkness in the work of the common farmer, hang him up 

 until some of our friends, the scientists, can inoculate him 

 with hope, and then send him out to see if he cannot do some- 

 thing to uplift, rather than to discourage. 



I could give you dozens of illustrations of what I niean 

 by this. Three years ago at an institute in New York there 

 was a common, everyday-looking farmer got up and asked a 

 question. I knew^ that man had been sitting for some time, 

 trying to get up courage so as to stand on his feet and ask that 

 question. He did not like to get up on his feet because he 

 was not in the habit of talking in public. He finally did so, 

 and he said: "How much can I afford to pay for wood 

 ashes a ton? " Now, wouldn't you think that the man on the 

 platform could have simply said " Nine dollars," or whatever 

 the number of dollars was? But instead of that the speaker was 

 simply bursting with wisdom. He is only the example of a 

 class. You have all seen it, in all probability. He gets up 

 and buttons his coat and clears his throat, and he says : " I am 

 very glad that this question has been asked. It is a very im- 

 portant question. Now wood ashes represent the residue 

 when wood of any kind is burned. As we all know oxidation 

 goes on in the wood, and when the wood is burned the greater 

 part of it passes away into the air and leaves a very small pro- 

 portion of ashes. Now, what does that represent? That 

 represents what is left when the wood is burned. A ton will 

 contain five per cent, of potash, about two per cent, of phos- 

 phoric acid, and about two per cent, of lime." And so he goes 

 on. In one instance I knew a man who went on that way 

 for about fifteen minutes. That is what I call the " know-it- 



