Vermont State Horticultukal Society 23 



under the circumstances. We would all go down into the orchard 

 with a cross-cut saw and axes and do the pruning, which 

 consisted in cutting off big limbs and doing other harmful things. 

 That represented the orchard pruning in our section. And then 

 there was the man who did grafting, — the man who could put 

 in a graft and make it live, — he was the biggest man in that 

 section. The doctor and lawyer didn't begin with him. 



We have plenty of natural fruit trees in New Hampshire 

 today that are indefinite fruit bearers ; they are worthless ; they 

 are a sort of blight upon our industry. You go over our farms, 

 we have there trees of this sort that grow apples practically every 

 year. You go out hunting, go through the woods and you come 

 across one of these trees that is loaded with apples. You bite 

 into the apples but you do not relish them because they are filled 

 with railroad worms. Of what account are these apples, or the 

 trees ? They might make very good cider, and a good place to 

 hunt partridges, but that is not apple growing. I believe it 

 should be by law a misdemeanor to have such a tree on a farm. 

 These old trees that have not been grafted over are the most 

 worthless things on a farm. 



I want to cite you a little experience with some boys I had 

 at the college this year who came for a two years' course in 

 agriculture, 22 boys from our best farm homes ; they came with 

 a purpose and signified it. I began to get acquainted with them 

 by asking how many of them could harness up a horse, — all of 

 the hands went up ; then, how many could milk a cow, — and so 

 on with a lot of questions, — and the boys commenced to think, — 

 'T wish I was home." I said to them : "Why, you know all 

 about agriculture, or seem to, and why have you come here?" 

 And they commenced to think they did know all about it. I 

 then said, "Boys, I have some slips here, and I am going to put 

 some questions on the board, and you may write the answers." 

 I put on the board such questions as this : "Apples. Name as 

 many varieties as you can." Also, "potatoes, cabbage, beets, etc." 

 "How many plants in a greenhouse can you name?" "How many 

 shrubs?" "How many trees?" I gave them two and a half hours 

 in which to write the answers, and said to them that it was not 

 an examination and they were to feel free to write just what 

 they knew ; that I had been at farmers' institutes and I could not 

 find many farmers that knew ten varieties of apples ; that it was 

 nothing to be ashamed of if they didn't know everything. The 

 next day after I had looked at the papers, I said, "It seems, 

 boys, that you have got to learn some of these things all over." 

 Some had not been able to name a variety of potatoes, let alone 

 many other things, and knew nothing about the plants in a 

 greenhouse. I told them that if at the end of a two years' course 



