68 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan., 



all " man. Instead of answering his question he simply 

 puzzled him. If that man had said " Eight or nine dollars," 

 and explained in five or ten words just what he meant, it would 

 have been a good thing, but he spoiled the effect of it all by 

 going into this labored and irresponsive and technical ex- 

 planation. 



Now it is strange w,hat some men w^ho go about talking 

 to our farmers tell them. I suppose I have had a dozen or 

 fifteen letters from a man who said that electricity is the thing 

 we have been looking for all these years, won't you tell us 

 about it? He had been told that. I traced it down, and in 

 one place I found that a man actually went around telling 

 the farmers that the time was coming when they could fertilize 

 by means of dynamos running electricity into the soil. That 

 it could be used as a fertilizer instead of manure. Now, is it 

 not a heart-breaking thing that men go about doing that, and 

 that there are men who will not listen for five minutes when 

 you try to explain a principle of scientific agriculture, and yet 

 will tumble all over themselves and spend five or ten dollars 

 chasing up such a thing as that? 



If I understand it right the farmers' institute speaker is the 

 man who has the faculty to explain, frankly and clearly, 

 the subject he is discussing, and to put it in such shape that 

 men will understand and know what he is talking about. He 

 should be a man who will excite attention and interest and 

 draw out questions from his listeners. Now, would I shut 

 off the scientific man? I have explained the practical man, 

 but would I shut off the scientific man from the platform of the 

 farmers' institute? No. But I would force him to make his 

 science understandable, so that when it gets into a man's head 

 he will understand what he has been told, and it will not rattle 

 around loose like a piece of brick in a basket. 



The scientific man may perhaps be called the " why " man, 

 and we might call the practical man the " how " man, because 

 he should tell how things are done, but I would have the 



