96 MISSOURI STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



satisfied men who think they know everything- worth knowing long- ago ; 

 but for such this paper is not intended, nor are they to be found in this 

 audience. I am not speaking of what is absolutely necessary in order 

 to eke out an existence, but of what will secure better results than have 

 been obtained so far — in other words, what will make us a progressive 

 people. 



But how are the farmers and horticulturists to obtain the informa- 

 tion they need ? Most of them have neither the time nor the means 

 to attend a school several years for this purpose ; and even if they 

 had, where would they go 1 How many schools are there in our State 

 that teach practical botany? It is true, most town schools and even a 

 number of country schools pretend to teach botany; but what kind of 

 botany do they teach? Almost without exception they confine them- 

 selves to a few technical terms, and to analyzing or rather name-finding 

 of a few plants with big flowers. But, since those plants most impor- 

 tant to the farmer seldom have big flowers, nine-tenths of the teachers 

 of these schools would have but very poor success in finding the names 

 of such plants. But even if in the course of the next ten or twenty 

 years the average teacher of botany gets far enough advanced in this 

 science to be able to classify an ordinary weed or grass, and thus tell 

 the farmer the scientific name, neither the farmer nor the teacher will 

 be much better posted on practical subjects by the extra knowledge 

 thus diffused. For of what use is it to the farmer to know that the 

 Latin name for his potatoes is solarium tuberosum if he does not know 

 whether to plant them in the ground or in the moon ? Or of what use 

 is it to the fruit grower to know that his strawberries go by the name 

 of fragaria, if he cannot raise them so that they will be fit to raise with 

 a spoon ? It must be evident that if the farmers and horticulturists 

 are to learn their botany from teachers who merely read a small text- 

 book on the subject in order to pass the examinations, they will have 

 to wait a long while before they learn anything of much benefit to 

 themselves. They should organize societies or classes and employ 

 good practical botanists to instruct them in what they most need to 

 know. In this way they would get what they want with very little 

 expense and very little trouble, for practical botany is very easily under- 

 stood by those who are always engaged in cultivating plants, if it is 

 placed before them in a common sense manner. Too much time is 

 wasted and interest sacrificed by horticultural and agricultural socie- 

 ties in talking over isolated facts or suppositions, instead of giving a 

 systematic and progressive course of instruction to their members. 

 Those who have received such a course are prepared to comprehend 

 the bearing and weight of each point brought out in the discussions, 



