ANNUAL WINTER MEETING. 75 



only stock in trade. Mr. Somerville is very apt as a teacher, and his pres- 

 entation of the work is right in the line that Mr. Thayer has suggested. 

 After he has stated in his plain, straightforward way what he has done, 

 then perhaps Mr. Lewis will get up to the blackboard, which we have and 

 to which every one has become accustomed, and show the farmers what 

 he has done upon his hog farm in the line of horticulture. 



Now, I have no' criticism to make upon your report. I have come to be 

 much interested in all its pages. But in my mind the great mass of our 

 farmers have not yet become sulBciently interested in this matter to take 

 the pains to go into all the little details that you do here in this meeting. 

 Again, you are not able to furnish the necessary number of copies to go 

 around, and, even if you were, I do not think it would be wise to spend 

 the money in that way. In other words, we may say that the mass of the 

 farmers are in the primary department of horticulture and are not ready 

 yet for the fifth reader and higher mathematics. 



Mr. Smith: I have had some little experience in that line and I agree 

 with what Mr. Gregg says. 1 would also say that in the work of other 

 horticultural societies there has been published what has been termed a 

 primer of horticulture, which takes up the more important details of cul- 

 tivation of the berries and the orchards, being a book of thirty-flve or 

 forty pages, which tends to explain the more common things in connec- 

 tion with this branch. I have mentioned this matter for the last seven 

 or eight years in the annual meetings of the state horticultural society, 

 and sometimes it seemed as if we were just on the eve of publishing a 

 similar primer of horticulture. We have never done it, however, and I 

 have hoped I would live long enough to help 'distribute a little book not 

 to exceed fifty pages in size that could be printed by the thousand for dis- 

 tribution over the state of Minnesota. 



Mr. Gregg: Allow me to suggest as bearing upon that matter, that I 

 have often thought it would be a very good thing for you — I may be in 

 error — to take the department of horticulture into your own hands. If 

 action is taken this winter, as I hope it will be, we shall be in better 

 shape by reason of the publication of that book than we have been in the 

 past. Now, what will you gain by this. First, you will have it bound in 

 substantial paper covers, and then distribution will be made with one 

 move of your hand. In order to save confusion in our meetings we have 

 always requested the members of the institute to remain seated while we 

 are distributing our books, and thus you will see this can be done, as I 

 said, with one move of the hand. 



I am taking steps to have our farmers begin to save these books 

 with the idea of making a library. No doubt you are as well 

 acquainted with the facts as I am, that we are almost wanting 

 in agricultural books. I can go into our public libraries and can 

 And ten books on hunting dogs, where I can get one book on agriculture. 

 1 paid $25 for books this spring, and I will state iiere candidly that fifty 

 per cent of those books were as worthless as a last year's almanac. They 

 were obsolete. You who read the agricultural papers largely will bear 

 me out in saying that we have often to wade through a great deal of stuff 

 before we get a little information. So I am trying to make up a good 

 library of agriculture that cannot be bought. To-day, right here in the 

 nineteenth century, we who follow agricultural pursuits must face this 

 fact, that we are following an occupation without a literature. 



