THE SECRETARY'S PORTFOLIO. 269 



purpose whatever than to protect the crops from damage by cattle that are 

 trespassers. No citizen has the right to keep his stock at the expense of his 

 neighbor any more than be has a right to a part of tlie hay he makes in his 

 meadow. But the inquiry comes, "What is tbe poor man going to do wbo 

 owns no pasture for his cow?" How often we hear this, and from persons, 

 too, who claim intelligence. Wiiy, if a man is too poor to own a pasture, he 

 is too poor to own a cow, and if he cannot live without a cow, the public is 

 taxed on purpose to provide for him and his family, but no individual should 

 be taxed to the extent of building miles of fence that he may keep a cow. As 

 well might my poor neighbor demand a part of my hay and corn crop for the 

 winter keeping of his cow as a part of my pasture — that in the highway — for 

 the summer keeping of his cow. Property is the same in one case as the 

 other, and should be as Avell protected in one as the other. 



My advice is that all plant trees along tlie highways if they choose to, and 

 take away their fences when they are not needed to restrain your own stock, 

 and at once take up and advertise all stock found at large when they come on 

 to your land, and the time is short till trees can grow as safely along the 

 roads as anywhere. 



S. B. Manit. 



Adrian, Mich. 



THE FRUIT TREE AGENT, 



In this Portfolio severe criticisms have often been made upon the fruit tree 

 agent, and it is but justice that we quote from President Albaugh of the Amer- 

 ican Nurseryman's Association, a few words in his defense : 



The nurseryman here gets the assistance of that much-abused, often-berated, 

 smooth-tongued, oily-speeched, iron-cheeked, long-winded, but nevertheless 

 truly philanthropic and ever indispensable ubiquitous traveling fruit tree agent. 

 Without him the nurseryman would leave the years of his toiling and labor 

 unfinished. With an indomitable energy worthy of as good a cause as this, he 

 has gained access and penetrated into all the nooks and recesses and corners of 

 the world. He has climbed the mountain side; has traveled along the valleys 

 and over the prairies of the far west ; along macadamized roads, and fields 

 teeming with grain ; under the scorching summer sun and amid winter's biting 

 frost. He has done even more than this. He has made these nooks and cor- 

 ners of many a barren waste under his manipulating hand to "bloom and 

 blossom as the rose." He has put thousands of thousands of barrels of fine 

 fruits upon your markets and made plethoric the purses of hundreds with the 

 profit of fruit growing that without him would have been destined to go down 

 through all the long years as lean and as lank as tlie leanest of Pharaoh's 

 kine. With all his faults and foibles and errors — some no doubt real, many 

 others only imaginary — I cannot help exclaiming, "long maybe wave," and 

 **may his shadow never grow less." 



WATERING TREES. 



" Leon" in Rural Yorker says : 



I often see men and women spill a pailful of water around the stem of a lawn, 

 street, or orchard tree, and think they have done a good thing, but they 



