380 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



chant, lawyer or doctor, but you must not think that you have only 

 to plant and sow the seed to reap big- crops and prices. 



You will have to pull off that coat, 



For you will find plenty to do. 



You will have no time to sit down and growl, 



But you will just have to "get up and how^l," 



And "paddle j'our own canoe." 



Perhaps you ■^■ill have some very bad luck. 



That is the time to show your pluck. 



You cannot stop to sit down and complain; 



You will have to get up and shake off the dust. 



And then go at it again. 



The problem of creating wealth from the soil is no less difficult 

 and laborious than any other business pursuit, and he who thinks 

 otherwise will learn at the end of sad and dear experience that he 

 was mistaken. Therefore, you want to study hard and get all the 

 information you can from practical men, and dont be afraid to get 

 all the good ideas j^ou can from writers on this subject. Work hard, 

 study hard and keep your eyes wide open, and you will hardlj'' fail. 



Mr. Stout: Ladies and gentlemen: This is the first meeting 

 of the kind I ever attended. I have been in the shoddy busi- 

 ness, and I have talked all my teeth out trying to make people 

 believe that shoddy was as good as all wool. For the last 

 three or four years I have been working in the garden. If you 

 were out in my garden where I work and wanted to know any- 

 thing, I could most likely tell you what you wanted to know, and 

 at any rate any time you come out I can talk you to death in a 

 few hours time. But to get me up here to talk is different. I 

 would like to ask the gentlemen here if they think there is any 

 virtue in coal ashes. 



Mr. Pearce: No, there is not. 



Mr. Stout: Well, now, just hold on; let me tell you some- 

 thing. A few years ago I bought a peck of some new kind of 

 potato, and I set them aside and forgot them, and when I found 

 them again it was pretty late, and I had no place to plant them. 

 I had a sandy knoll, mixed with clay, which I thought was 

 good for nothing, but I covered it with coal ashes and put in 

 my potatoes and covered them over, and I noticed after a while 

 that the bugs did not bother them; I asked myself the reason 

 why the bugs did not get after those vines, for it was a fact 

 they let them alone. The vines were not as thick as my arm, 

 and there were no weeds among them either; once in a while a 

 big weed would come up, but on the whole I thought those 

 potatoes would not amount to anything. One day I went to 

 work and dug up some just to see what they were like, and the 

 way those potatoes looked made my eyes stick out like the 



