184 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



and yet the farmer who wrote it had not courage to stand up 

 and read it. Now, you have got just such farmers here. 

 Let them sit down and they will make a good speech, but let 

 them get on their feet, just as I am fool enough to do some- 

 times, and they will forget (as I do) what they were going to 

 say, just like the boy of whom we have all heard, who went 

 on an errand and kept repeating the three things he was to 

 get until he fell down. Run your Farmers' Clubs in the sim- 

 plest manner possible, and let this man take one crop to 

 experiment upon, and another man take another crop, and 

 some other man another, and let these experiments be care- 

 fully conducted, and everything noted. Do not trust to 

 memory for a single thing, but put it all down in black and 

 white, and compare the results ; know every fact, and then 

 you commence to lay the foundation for some agi"icultural 

 fact that you will afterwards use. Continue this course until 

 every man is fully satisfied in his own mind that he has fixed 

 a starting-point. This is the way I think we must start. 

 The Agricultural College will aid us immensely in this work. 

 Let us be " free and easy " in our communications with the 

 scientific men there. Don't let us entertain the opinion, if we 

 have heretofore, that they are so stuck up they won't tell us 

 what they know. They will tell us, and they will gladly aid 

 us in our efibrts, but we must work ourselves. Because we 

 have established agricultural colleges is no reason why we 

 should sit down and let our Professors do the work. They 

 need our aid, and we must put our shoulder to the wheel and 

 move it forward with them. We must work together ; we 

 must be co-workers. Now, gentlemen, let me say, that I have 

 found hen-manure pulverized better than any commercial fer- 

 tilizer I have ever been able to purchase, but I have found 

 that more than one-half of the farmers in Herkimer County do 

 not regard it as worth saving. How is it in Barre ? 

 Mr. Ellsworth. Some of us know the value of it. 

 Mr. Lewis. I am glad to hear it. I will make a big chalk 

 mark for you. Gentlemen, I say to you, I do not care 

 whether you believe it or not, that I never used hen-manure 

 on the corn crop without having benefited it more than all 

 the corn the hens ate. Stick a peg there. It has added more 

 to my corn crop than the amount sufficient to feed my poultry. 



