382 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



Mr. Hale: They were not labeled Indiana Ben Davis, because you peo- 

 ple won't label tbem. However, I suppose evei-y State thinks its own Ben 

 Davis apples better than those grown elsewhere. The Missouri brethren 

 are having a meeting today, and if this subject of the Ben Davis apple 

 comes up there — as no doubt it will— I suppose they will admit that the 

 Michigan, or the Indiana or the Connecticut Ben Davis apples are not 

 quite up to the mark, and that the only really good Ben Davis that is 

 gTown is in the Ozark region. 



Mr. Flick: The Indiana Ben Davis is the best, and I can prove it. 

 Our commission men who handle all these apples from the different 

 States stand by us and say we grow the best Ben Davis apples in the 

 world. I do not say that the Ben Davis is the best apple in the world; 

 but I say we do grow the best Ben Davis there Is grown. 



Mr. Hale: I was born on the banks of the Connecticut river. Doubt- 

 less some of your ancestors were born there, and probably you have heard 

 them tell that the only shad in the world fit to eat are in that river. I 

 had always heard that, and I always believed it until I was twenty-five 

 years old. I suppose some of you believe it yet. As I have gone on in 

 years I have camped on the banks of the St. John and the Savannah and 

 the Potomac and the James and the Delaware and the Hudson, the Penob- 

 scott and the Kennebec, and I have eaten shad and have heard the old 

 fellows tell the same old story, the one shad of all other that is fit to eat 

 comes out of their own rivers, and to dispute with them would be just as 

 senseless as to dispute with the secretary of this organization, as to the 

 quality of the Indiana gTown Ben Davis. 



Mr. Flick: But we have gone to the people who deal in this fruit, and 

 we take their judgment as well as our own. I have told you what they 

 say about the matter. W6 have some of the best commission men in the 

 United States, and they tell us we can raise the best Ben Davis apples 

 that are raised in the United States. The men who visited the World's 

 Fair and tasted our apples said our Ben Davis apples did not taste like 

 theirs. This is a matter of taste, probably. We don't expect an eastern 

 man to gi-ow anything but Greenings and Baldwins, and perhaps "wooden 

 nutmegs." We don't claim that we can meet them there, but we do say 

 we can grow good Ben Davis apples, and we are going to grow them 

 better every year. 



Mr. Hale: He has made a point that is worth noting. He believes in 

 Indiana, he believes in himself, and that is what makes the country what 

 it is. I would not give much for a man who would not, at all times, 

 stand up and express his belief that the place where he is located is the 

 best place on earth. That is what makes the counti-y worth living in. So 



