1879] REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 4I 



merits and possibilities of the Shade and Spading-Fork. He 

 has sometimes persuaded himself that therein is involved the 

 true theory and practice of future TVrn^-culture. A similar 

 idea was recently elaborated, from an English point of view, by 

 the First Commoner of England,* who, in an address to his 

 constituents and neighbors at Hawarden, told his belief that 

 "one of the means by which cultivators of the soil might 

 " improve their position, was to pay a greater amount of atten- 

 "tion to what was called garden and spade cultivation." 



If no man can consume what that man can grow, what need 

 of any one lacking food who is willing to work } Nay, — why 

 limit the capacity of production ? Why not rather stimulate it to 

 the utmost, — providing simultaneously for the more thorough 

 distribution of results ! Multitudes in far-off lands are even now 

 starving for lack of the very crumbs that fall from our plethoric 

 tables. How many, even' among us, are pining from want of 

 the fruit that actually poisons the ground in the plentitude of 

 its decay ! You say that you cannot obtain a living price for 

 your crops. Are you certain of that ? The writer conversed, 

 lately, with that rare animal — a contented ^^mg'-culturist — who 

 feeds out fruit to his stock and expresses himself satisfied with 

 the price that he is getting for his milk. He said that he 

 could produce for two cents per quart, and obtain four in return. 

 Have you ever computed the cost of growing those bushels of 

 Bartletts and Bonne de Jerseys which you complain are unsale- 

 able } Have you once tried (persevering continually), to 

 diminish, and thus perfect, your crops, that their conceded 

 excellence should compel a demand for them .'' Has it ever 

 occurred to you that the conditions of a year of scarcity differ 

 only in degree from those wherein there is a superfluity : and 

 that, if the superfluous harvest suffered, or exacted from a tree, 

 were checked, or only not required, there would be no such thing 

 known as famine or plethora in alternate seasons. When the 

 first section marched by — indifferent, or scorning the marriage- 

 feast — a message was sent that constrained the awkward-squad. 



* Mr. Gladstone. 



6 



