ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF ONTARIO. 13 



What a large portion of our reading is monopolized by a few things. I suppose the 

 people of London know how much importance is attached to politics. It seems to be 

 necessary the world over to have politics, but there are other things that are constantly 

 tilling the newspapers. What does that prove 1 That the people want to hear about 

 these things, that the people have their attention taken up with these things, yet it is 

 not very often that you find the most valuable columns of the newspapers given over to 

 some great agriculture event, unless it may be in the case of agricultural depression 

 or crop failure where there is something that is going to effect the finances of the whole 

 country. 



The point I want to make is this, there are lots of things happening in connection 

 ■with agriculture, that are far more important to the prosperity of the country than these 

 things which seem to occupy such an important place in connection with public atten- 

 tion. I have brought along with me a picture to illustrate that. Last summer, many 

 of our Canadian papers were interested in a discussion, as to whether the American 

 Society of Colonial Wars should be allowed to go down to Louisburg, Cape Breton, 

 and erect a monument to commemorate the taking of that place by the Americans, 

 British Colonists, as they were at that time. If I remember correctly some 150 years 

 ago they occupied the place and held it for a short time, and then the French people 

 took it back again. Now that event has cropped up again, after a period of 150 years. 

 That event has been made so important to a large class of the community that they 

 felt themselves constrained to raise a large fund, to get together a large exoursioa party, 

 and to journey to Louisburg and erect that monument. It created so much attention 

 at the time that it was a matter of doubt as to whether the Canadian Government 

 ought to allow these people to go over there and erect the monument or not. This 

 picture was sent me by Mr. Thompson, of Massachusetts, and I will just read you the 

 inscription upon it. It is doubtful whether half a dozen in this room have ever seen 

 this in the newspapers, or whether they know such a monument was erected. " This 

 pillar, erected in 1895 by the Rumford Historical Association, incorporated April 28th, 

 1877, marks the estate where in 1793 Samuel Thompson, Esq., while locating the line of 

 the Middlesex Canal discovered the first Pecker Apple Tree, later named the Bald- 

 win." Now, I will submit it to you as to whether it was of more importance to the 

 country to capture and hold for a short time, that little point down there on Gape 

 Breton, or to discover the " Baldwin Apple." That Baldwin apple was discovered in 

 1793, and at the present day if you pick up in the fall of the year, just ab^ut this time, 

 the market reports in Liverpool, you will find a few kinds of apples mentioned. G-een- 

 ings so much a barrel, Spies so much, Baldwins so much. Practically from that day to 

 this the Baldwin apple has been produced over the Eastern and Western States, and in 

 Canada, and has been bringing in year by year a large amount of money to the Amer- 

 ican people. And yet events of that kind are practically lost sight of ; whereas events 

 such as I have spoken of, are blazed forth to the country and the minds of the people 

 are filled with it. Now it seems to me these things are out of all due proportion. 

 Probably we cannot rectify them, yet the point I want to make here is that there are a 

 great many things happening, there are a great many conclusions being arrived at in 

 connection with the prosperity of this country that are entirely overlooked, whereas 

 other events that are of little consequence after all, are magnified and fill column after 

 column of the newspaper. What is the result of this 1 Suppose you ask the boys 

 and girls in the rural parts, and the boys and girls in our towns and cities, what effect 

 the reading of these matters has upon their minds ] Is it not a fact that it suggests 

 to their minds the paramount importance of politics and such things as concern town 

 and city life. The result is their minds become filled with the events of town and city 

 life ; their inclinations are drawn off in that direction ; the ties which bind them to 

 agriculture become cut one after another, and the ties which lure them away become 

 greater and greater, till we find a great many of these, to their discomfort afterward, 

 are lost to agriculture and a great many men who would have made first-class agricul- 

 turalists, are drafted off in other lines of work to take second and third-rate positions. 



The last point I desire to touch upon in connection with this new agriculture, is 

 that during the last ten or twelve years, to say nothing about the past twenty-five years, 



