58 Third Annual Report 



not over 5 per cent of the plantings made even a fair crop, and 

 seed from successful crops in New England gave no better re- 

 sults than those grown in Michigan. It is difficult for one who 

 has not had an opportunity to see how the products of the same 

 lot of seed with the same hereditary tendencies will differ when 

 the plants are grown in different soil, in different climate or 

 differently cultivated, to appreciate how greatly plants vary in 

 this respect or how much the use of seeds of sorts suited to one's 

 particular wants and conditions v^^ll determine the satisfaction 

 and success which will come from their cultivation. How are 

 you to learn which of the sorts oft'ered are best suited to your 

 needs? You can learn a little and I am sorry to say but a 

 little, from the seedmen's catalogues, more from the experience 

 of others where conditions and wants are as nearly like your 

 own as possible, but still more from planting in your own garden, 

 seed of the most promising sorts and studying their develop- 

 ment. I know of no way in which our Experiment Stations can 

 be more helpful than through experiment to be best suited to 

 conditions like their own. But your own observations of plants 

 in your own garden will always be the best guide. Believe me, 

 that while there is no sort which is the "best of all," superior to 

 any other for all places and purposes, there are sorts which are 

 better suited to your condition and wants than others and set 

 about an earnest search for the one best suited to your particular 

 conditions and needs. I have spoken of material things, of how 

 we may obtain more and better tomatoes and beans, but there is 

 something back of, and of greater importance than that. Fifty 

 years ago as a boy living in a Massachusetts village within sight 

 of the stone house in which Harriet Beecher Stowe lived, my 

 heart was stirred with pity for the slaves of the South and I 

 felt that the future prosperity and greatness of our country de- 

 pended upon the prevention of the spread of slavery into our 

 newer western states. Today I live in Washington and the 

 pity I felt in my boyhood for the slaves of the South was not 

 greater than that I feel today for tlie boys and girls who living 

 in apartments never put foot on bare earth except possibly on a 

 vacation day when they can go to the country. I asked one of 

 them a few days ago where his home was and he replied, "Oh, 

 we haven't any home, we live in an apartment." It was the 

 home builders of New England and Virginia, of Ohio and Michi- 

 gan, Iowa and Kansas, Dakota and Texas that have made this 

 country what it is, and the menace to our country's future 50 

 years ago through the spread of slavery was as nothing com- 

 pared with that which exists today through the possible de- 

 cadence of the American home. The homes of the future are 

 dependent upon the boys of today and there is no better or more 



