No. 6. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 157 



MR. BLYHOLDER: Call on some more. 



The CHAIR: Well, I will call on Brother Blyholder, then. 



MR. BLYHOLDER: It does not seem to me that we gentlemen 

 should go away this afternoon without spending some time, if not in 

 the actual work, as we might say, of the Board, discussing results 

 and things of that kind, yet in a social way, it seems to me, we can do 

 a great deal that may be beneficial. 



I want to say to you frankly that this is my first visit to West 

 Chester, and I called on a gentleman to-day whom I have met before 

 in agricultural meetings, not of this body, but in other meetings for 

 a number of years. He is now ninety years of age and he is not able to 

 go out of his house, whose hands I shook this afternoon and whose 

 grasp I will not soon forget. I would feel fully repaid for coming 

 here by that warm hand-grasp if there were nothing else and it seems 

 to me tha x we may well pay more attention, and profitably devote 

 more time to the social features of farm life, for when this has been 

 lost, a great deal has been lost. 



I am glad that it is my good fortune to be present with you here to- 

 day and to look in the face of Brother Downing, and other friends 

 whom we have the pleasure of meeting here, who are engaged in the 

 same work with us along agricultural lines. I came into the Board 

 some years ago when I was considerably younger than I am to-day 

 and Brother Downing was then an active member, as well as others 

 I might mention. My relations with the Board have always been 

 very pleasant and they have done a great deal for me along agricul- 

 tural lines as well as a great deal for me in social lines. 



I feel that we are engaged in a great work in agriculture, and I 

 believe that this is going to be a great meeting here. I am sure 

 that Brother Martin has prepared for us a strong program 

 from which we shall all derive a great deal of valuable instruction, 

 which will be of great benefit L o us in carrying on the work along all 

 the lines in which we are interested and in these Farmers' Institutes 

 that are doing so much and have done so much in the promotion of 

 the interests of the farmers of this great Commonwealth. It is a 

 pleasure to me to como to Chester county, and there is only one thing 

 that I have seen that I do not like to see and that is, the many weeds 

 that I have noticed in pp jsing over some portion of the county, so 

 many weeds growing along in sonic places that I could hardly realize 

 I was in Chester county. If we can find some method that will lead 

 to the destruction of these weeds while we are down here attending 

 this mectiug, it will certainly be a grand good thing for Cheste.* 

 county. 



Now I think I have occupied more time than I should and T will 

 give way to my friend Robert Seeds and he will come forward and 

 tell us all he knows about farming. 



