•88 THE CONXECTICUT POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



He is an optimist like Brother Hale. He was an optimist in 

 college. He helped to pull a winning oar on the university 

 crew, and he has served his day and generation by preaching 

 and practicing righteousness. It gives me great pleasure to 

 introduce you to Dr. Joseph H. Twichell. I presume he is 

 generally known by that name here. If this were a bunch of 

 Yale men, we should call him "Joe Twichell." 



Dr. J. H. Twichell: Mr. Toastmaster and Friends: 

 I feel moved to say in the first place that you are a mighty 

 well appearing body of people. I do not know whether you 

 are embarrassed at that remark or not, but I felt that I ought 

 to say that at the start (Laughter). Now I had no idea 

 when I came here this evening just what I should say. We 

 ministers of the present age are not, as a rule, versed in 

 the practice of agriculture. It was different in times past. A 

 hundred and fifty or two hundred years ago, and in fact 

 later, during the colonial days, many of the ministers and 

 preachers of the gospel were fruit growers. A story of one 

 of them has come down to us which may be of interest. There 

 was an old Parson Robinson, the father of Dr. Edward Robin- 

 son, the eminent scholar and traveler, as you know, who is said 

 to have performed great services in the town of his adop- 

 tion by teaching men how to farm, and it is said that he al- 

 ways taught them how to bring their products to market. It 

 is alleged that he himself officiated as the middleman in the 

 case, buying and selling, and became quite thrifty, so much 

 so that he acquired a considerable estate, so much so, in fact, 

 that those on the farms with whom he dealt, and from whom 

 he bought, began in process of time to find out that they had 

 got to be a little careful in dealing with Parson Robinson. 

 (Laughter). It is related that one man who had not re- 

 ceived proper advice as to the parson, after a transaction 

 with Parson Robinson, or sometime after, when he found out 

 his situation said that the parson had got the better of him, 

 and he said to him, "Parson, you were fulfilling the scriptur- 



