244 StMe Horticultural Society. 



the Porter cared for their baggage. They attended Ewalt theatre 

 and enjoyed the great Russian actors — Sitovka, Tetofsky, Arab- 

 skoe, and also Tahnan's Sweet voice. Belle de Boskoop's "Sweet" 

 Bough, in response to an encore, was exquisite. The after-theatre 

 lunch consisted of Jersey Sweet potatoes, Delaware Red herring 

 and Chenango Strawberries with Canada Red Wine. They re- 

 turned home via Greenville, on account of Maxson's Early morn- 

 ing telegram, inviting them to visit Peck's Pleasant summer resi- 

 dence at Baxter. They will spend next winter at Scott's Winter 

 home at Spitzenburg, in company with their friends, Mr. and Mrs. 

 R. I. Greening (nee Benoni Boiken of Walker, formerly known as 

 Walker's Beauty), where Mr. Davis will receive treatment for the 

 injury caused by being struck by a Mammoth Black Twig by the 

 well known specialist, Dr. Hubbardston Nonesuch Walbridge. 



H. W. Collingwood, editor Rural New Yorker, was then intro- 

 duced for "A Message from the East." He said he was going to 

 talk as though he had been our neighbor all his life. Don't know who 

 got up this program, but it was a good one. He ran for Congress 

 on the Prohibition ticket this year, and got 600 votes out of 6,000, 

 but thought if he had the man who got up this program to work 

 for him he might have been elected. 



Today, when men come out of the east, they come humbly. 

 When a man gets up and makes a statement in one of these meet- 

 ings, some one is liable to call him down and make him prove 

 the statements. When a little boy, I got my first idea of a middle- 

 man. There was a Yankee on Cape Cod who ran a cider mill. He 

 told my brother and I that if we would pick up seedling apples for 

 the mill we could have all the cider we could suck through a straw. 

 After we got the apples picked up he said we could have the cider, 

 but could not go in the house after it. Then we found a hole in the 

 side of the house and prepared to get our cider that way, but the 

 man fenced around the hole. So we had to plan again. Finally we 

 hit upon the plan of putting a small boy under the fence. One 

 straw was run from the cider barrel to that boy's mouth, and then 

 another straw was to pass it on to us. He was to draw the cider 

 from the barrel and we got our cider through his mouth. This was 

 the first time I ever came up against the middleman. Every mid- 

 dleman I have come up against since that time was about like this 

 boy; soon as he got enough to satisfy himself he lost interest, for- 

 got to pass it along, and we were left with what we could get. 



