1879] REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 43 



that it will not pay to do it. That, also, is possible ; yet the 

 averment could be made with greater certainty were the exper- 

 iment once fairly tried. This is known : that the Dutch East 

 India Company never came to want because nutmegs were un- 

 salable. The market that was not found — ready to hand — 

 they created ; that is all. 



How many people are there among us who have not tasted 

 of fruit this whole season ? Do you assert that it is their own 

 fault if there are any, it costs so little.'' 'But what matters it 

 how little, if it is too much ? Will you not try, for once, to 

 grow fewer specimens, and better as they are fewer .-' To ma- 

 ture them by so mulching the trees as to retard development 

 vmder our torrid suns .'' To offer them at a price which is sat- 

 isfactory because it is reasonable, and to rejoice if you sell them 

 so low that no one shall, perforce, elect liver or tripe. 



There are gentlemen in this presence, to whose political 

 vision all vexed questions of finance are transparent. Who are 

 convinced that the baser currency inevitably drives out and 

 supplants the better and more valuable; — more valuable and 

 better as it is the veritable and almost sole representative of the 

 famine, and thirst, and life, that it dearly cost. Yet, as Horti- 

 culturists, they persist in growing the Boussoc, Clairgeau, and 

 Duchesse, to the exclusion of the Cornice, Beurre d' Anjon, or 

 Winter Nelis. They are fully aware that but two metals have 

 ever served for coin. But they prove all things, and — holding 

 fast to that which is good — do not let go of the poor or worth- 

 less. With the power to make the market what you would 

 have it, wherever is the wonder that you have it what you 

 make it ! 



It may appear a dream of madness — the substitution of the 

 Spade, or Spading-Fork, for the Plough ; yet calmly considered, 

 why should not such a result come about in the not remote 

 future? And even were tillage upon a large scale, to insist 

 upon a retention of the more unwieldy implement, with its at- 

 tendant train of brutes, it might yet be possible to demonstrate 

 that the harvest from such increased surface would not neces- 



