446 ANNUAL, REPORT OF THE Off. Doc 



liOY'S CORN CLUBS. 



By DR. W. T. PHILLIPT, Carlisle, Pa. 



I want to first express to you my appreciation of the honor and 

 privilege that has been conferred upon me by the Secretary of the 

 Pennsylvania Livestock Breeders' Association, in asking- me to 

 appear before you tonight. He wrote me, and asked whether T 

 would speak upon this topic for a few minutes this evening; he did 

 not say iiow many, and I want to say to you like the good old 

 colored brother, who went to preach a trial sermon in the South. 

 He said, *'Now, brothers and sistters, I sometimes preach long 

 sermons, and if any of you get sick or tired, we will excuse you.'' 

 He preached for sometime, and then noticed that one good old 

 brother, sitting in the rear was becoming restless, so he said 

 "Brother, are you sick?" And the Brother replied, "Yes; I'm home- 

 sick." So, if any of you get homesick before I get through with 

 my talk, we'll excuse you. 



I want to say to you, ladies and gentlemen, that when I first 

 began this Boy's Corn Growing contest — I was glad the good 

 Secretary read the award of the prizes before I had the floor because 

 a few of them went over to Cumberland county; not very many 

 first class prizes, but we are glad for any good thing over there— 

 when I first began this work two years ago, I spoke of it to my 

 friends, and they rather discouraged me; they said "I don't believe 

 vou can make a success of it; I don't believe you can get the boys 

 interested in growing corn." "Well," 1 said, "I'll try it." I always 

 try to be an optimist. Things sometimes get down almost to the 

 level, but if I cannot be an optimist, I will at least be a hopeful 

 pessimist. Now, you know, there are always some people, ^yho 

 when they can't do any thing else, can see trouble in everything. 

 Like every other county, Cumberland has its quota of Democrats, 

 and you know the old saying, "more corn, more whiskey, more 

 whiskey, more Democrats" and this is what they told us would be 

 the result if we started growing more corn, but those of you who 

 followed the recent election, know there is nothing in that. I don't 

 know what is the next thing they will bring up now, but they have 

 not succeeded in discouraging us yet. 



One of my friends in the Cumberland Valley had a thoroughly 

 acclimated Yellow Dent Corn; originally the seed came from 

 Missouri. I secured some of this corn from him, and then put an 

 advertisement in the different papers of the county, asking that 

 the boys of the Cumberland A'alley, between eight and eighteen 

 years of age, send me their names and their desire to enter this con- 

 test. To all whose names I got. I sent several ounces of this corn, 

 asking them to plant it, fertilize it and cultivate it. according to 

 their judgment, and in the fall we would have a show. Then I 

 went round among my friends, and secured from them, and from the 

 enterprising farmers of the county, twenty prizes, averaging from 

 twenty-five cents to five dollars. When the fall come we had a show, 



