62 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



the subject of market-gardening. Here this afternoon you 

 listened with great interest to all that was said, and you 

 found that market-gardeners do not agree among themselves : 

 they are like scientific men ; we do not agree. There 

 appeared a very great necessity for more accurate obser- 

 vation; a necessity that our farmers' boys, if they are to 

 make farming pay, should understand. They should also 

 have that in themselves which will make farming pay in 

 something besides dollars and cents. I was particularly 

 interested in what one gentleman said this afternoon ; that, 

 when it came Thanksgiving Day, he had a crop around him 

 that was pretty profitable to him, if it was not to anybody 

 else. There is more than one way to make farming pay. If 

 we only try to make any business pay in dollars and cents, 

 we shall be poor all our lives, and go down to the grave in 

 absolute poverty, though our heirs should inherit untold 

 riches when we die. 



My course to-night may seem a little on the outside ; but, 

 before we get through, we shall come around to this corn which 

 I have here on the sofa, which I have been experimenting 

 upon this year. Now, I propose to ask a question, in order 

 to illustrate this one point which I have brought up, in regard 

 to the necessity of more accurate observation, and to convince 

 you, I think, that we are very deficient in this matter. I 

 suppose there is not a fruit on the face of the earth that this 

 audience is better acquainted with than with the apple, and 

 I propose to ask you a single question in regard to that fruit. 

 There are on the blackboard the outlines of two apples. If 

 we cut down through these apples, we find seeds in them. 

 There is not one in this audience who has not cut an apple 

 open hundreds of times. Many of you have cut them open 

 to-day, I presume. Now, an apple-seed has a sharp point, and 

 I want this audience to tell me where I shall put that sharp 

 point in the apple. Shall I put it towards the stem, or shall I 

 put it towards the calyx ? [A voice : " Towards the stem."] 

 Those that think it should be put towards the stem, raise 

 their hands. [A few hands were raised.] Those that think 

 it should be put towards the calyx, raise their hands. [Quite 

 a number raise their hands.] Those who do not know, raise 

 their hands. [A large majority of the audience responded.] 

 Why, there are votes enough to carry a man into Congress, 



