256 THE CONNECTICUT POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



ties city stable manure. It took nearly half the time of a man 

 to cart it home, and then it used to be composted, and then 

 after it was rotted down, we had to cart it out and put half 

 a shovelful along each plant that we had put into the ground. 

 It took a lot of time. That was the old style. There are some 

 people doing it now. With all the exhortations of the agricul- 

 tural press and the experiment station bulletins, people are in- 

 clined still to follow along the same road that father took. I 

 cannot impress that upon you any stronger than by this illus- 

 tration. A drummer at one time got into a little town, and 

 after spending some time in eating a hurried meal, he ran for 

 his train. He just caught it, and got in, when the conduc- 

 tor came through, and he said to the passenger, "This is an 

 express.'' "Well," said the man, "It is enough to give a man 

 heart disease to ride over a road like this." Well, the con- 

 ductor said that the road did not pay, but in order to save 

 their charter they ran a few trains. After the drummer liad 

 ridden along for a while he got the conductor's attention and 

 said, "Why, we are traveling a good deal smoother now. I 

 guess they must have been making some repairs on this end.' 

 "My gracious !" said the conductor, "it isn't that, but we are 

 off the track." (Laughter). Now there are more farmers 

 than one scattered between here and where I live that would 

 travel a good deal smoother if they would get off the track 

 that father was on fifty or a hundred years ago. We began 

 to realize some years ago that it was too much of an expense 

 to be buying city stable manure by the hundreds of tons, and 

 using a man and teams all winter to get it to our farms. That 

 gave rise to the question, was it possible to keep up the fertil- 

 ity of our land without so much manure? Now, necessity is 

 the mother of invention. Labor got scarce. Manure got high. 

 And we were forced to do something. We began to cut down 

 on the manure, and at the present time there is not one-quarter 

 used by the truck gardeners in my section that there was twen- 

 ty years ago. 



Now, without taking up too much time, let me pass on 



