FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 289 



tainly learned that no man knows all of even one method in horticulture. 

 There are fixed rules in mathematics and sciences that men can depend 

 upon, but in horticulture we find new complications, of weather, fungous 

 troubles, conditions of soil, drainage, atmosphere, and everything of that 

 kind coming up, and the}^ can make a thousand complications. The man 

 who combats his enemies successfully is a genius, and the knowledge does 

 not always come out of the schoolroom either. These things are naturally 

 born in a man, I believe, but they require careful training. He must 

 learn from his neighbors. He may have a plan fixed in his mind because 

 it is successful with him, but he does not know what complications his 

 neighbors are dealing with, and they disagree. And it is only by coming 

 together that we can get at the facts. We could go on, if I could, for 

 hours calling your attention to these matters, but I do not think it is 

 necessary, because you will want to do some talking and I do not want to 

 take all your time. But I am sorry to say that in my travels around the 

 State this winter, where we find two, three, four or five hundred farmers 

 and their wives coming together at Institutes, a little inquiry usually 

 shows the fact that a large majority of them do not know he value of this 

 training. It is to be regretted, because the day is fast approaching when 

 the man who does not cultivate his brains is not going to keep up in the 

 race, and the community becomes poorer, while it should not be so. We 

 have had what some men call a trying year, still some men by peculiar 

 conditions which exist with them through their own efforts, or through 

 their advantages, have succeeded. When it gets down to a point where 

 it is barely a turn of the hand between success or failure, then is the time 

 that a knowledge of our business becomes important; in fact it may mean 

 bankruptcy or success in business, to do the right thing at the right time 

 and not the right thing at the wrong time. There is such a thing as doing 

 the right thing at the wrong time. These things must come by training ; 

 you must learn it j^ourself or learn it from some successful neighbor. 



We find men among farmers, I- am sorry to say, who, the moment a 

 neighbor becomes successful, feel envious towards him; they think he is 

 getting too smart and needs pulling down — you know whom I am talking 

 about probably; I never saw a neighborhood yet that did not have one. 

 But such men are to be pitied, but it makes no difference what those men 

 think, we have got ourselves to take care of. Therefore, get knowledge. 

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