oie MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
horticulture it falls on them like a wet blanket; over fifty per cent. 
don’t want to hear anything aboutit. I have watched the thing just 
as carefully as I could,and I could see it on the countenance of every 
man present. There might be some fifteen or twenty horticulturists 
there, and their faces would glow with animation. I do notcare 
who it is that may be speaking, if he knows that there are fifty or 
seventy-five per cent of those present who care nothing at all about 
what he says, pay no attention to it, he can have no courage at all 
to talk; he does not feel like it. 
My suggestion is this, and if we will adopt it, we can do an im- 
mense amount of good. I want our institute work so far as horti- 
culture is concerned held in a place by itself; I want all our straw- 
berry growers there, our blackberry growers, every one who is at all 
interested in horticulture; I want all the horticulturists right there, 
and if it is properly conducted we can draw three hundred per cent. 
more there—if each one gets just what he wants, the cow man, the 
horse man, the sheep man, the wheat man; they are all interested in 
their work, and I claim itis better to give them separate instruction 
than to try to hold themall together. Ido not care anything about a 
person who has no interest in horticulture—we want only those who 
are interested. If those men are educated right up to the work, they 
become enthusiastic, they spread over the country in different 
places, and they will do good work, and they will do an immense 
amount of good by demonstrating what they can do. Now, that is 
my system of teaching horticulture in our farmers’ institutes. We 
will make thorough men out ofsome. We cannot do one-tenth justice 
to the interests of horticulture in the time we now have given us. 
We have thirty minutes. One-half the speakers cannot get started 
in that time. We want the forenoon and the afternoon. I think by 
following those suggestions we can do an immense amount of good. 
Wm. Somerville: This institute work is a peculiar thing. You 
take the cow interest; you can send a man all over this country to 
talk cow, and you can hardly get acorporal’s guard out. You take 
the hog interest, and get as good a man as Theodore Louis to talk 
about it, and you can hardly get acorporal’s guard out. You take 
horticulture and undertake to run that interest by itself, and you 
can get still less out to hearit. You must give them a variety of 
things. So far as time is concerned, I have never been allowed less 
than oneand a half hours; I would talk horticulture, and it would not 
throw a wet blanket over the people. If you are interested yourself, 
you will get along all right, and you will get the crowd to listen to 
you, and you will get them interested enough so they will inquire 
about horticulture. 
Mr. E. H.S. Dartt: I think I have been imposed upon a little this 
morning. My friend over there has been stealing my thunder talk- 
ing about fools. He said there were seventy-five per cent. of the 
people at farmers’ institutes who paid no attention to us. I have 
had alittle practice in that line. In order not to do that, I think 
when we get up and look a little wise and know about what we are 
talking, we should deal out our wisdom in small doses to suit the 
capacity of the audience to digest what we give out. There is an- 
