394 • ANNUAL REPORT. 



culture, raising horticultural products of any kind, and then my most- 

 successful efforts were when the owner wasn't looking. [Laughter.] 

 I have heard a good deal of discussion here about the "hardiness"^ 

 of fruit, especially apples. I remember in my youth I used to be 

 pelted by apples that were "hard" enough to satisfy me, and ought to 

 satisfy the ambition of a Minnesota winter. [Laughter.] I think I 

 could suggest to you some improvement in raising water-melons, for 

 instance; I remember when I used to aid in raising a big crop in a 

 small portion of a single evening — vines and all. [Renewed laughter.] 

 I have been a silent listener to your discussions during the sessions 

 of this meeting; I hoped I would be allowed to remain a listener. 

 This convention has suggested the thought to me that our civilization 

 commenced at the wrong end. It seems that we are just arriving at 

 a point where we should have commenced a thousand years ago. Civi- 

 lization and science began by studying the heavens, measuring and 

 analyzing the stars, and even trying to penetrate the mysteries of the 

 future, hundreds of years before they began to study the wonders and 

 capabilities of the despised clods at our feet. You gentleman are 

 beginning to do that. You are beginning to learn the basis of the 

 earth we live upon. In fact, the philosophers, the logicians, the mor- 

 alists, the artists and the poets that are doing the world the most good 

 to-day are found in the ranks of just such men as yourselves. This is 

 not "tafipy," gentlemen, and no boquets are expected. Even now, if 

 you gentleman here were long-haired, hollow-cheeked and dispeptic, 

 and were discussing abstruse questions about the "thinness of the 

 whereas'^; or if a man is unable to contain himself; is he too large 

 or too small? — or some other philosophical subject, this hall would be 

 full of people, sitting and listening to your "great wisdom." But you 

 are here discussing questions of vital importance and practical value, 

 and yet you are hardly deemed worthy of an audience of a single per- 

 son, aside from those who are interested in your work. 



For ages past much that has passed for genius of the noblest kind 

 has been employed in painting mythological gods and saints, trying to 

 discover something of the unknown world, or speculating on ques- 

 tions of no practical value; but you, gentlemen, are the logicians of 

 the hardy tree; you are the philosophers of an apple that will stand 

 the winters of Minnesota; you are the moralists of the beautiful and 

 the good — the good to the taste and the beautiful to the eye — you are 

 the poets of the flower and the fruit; as such I address you, and regard- 

 ing you as such I cannot tresspass on your time longer. I bid you good 

 evening. [Applause.] 



