67 



carefully apples of this kind (indicating some good fruit) 

 to pack at either end of the barrel, and I judge, by some re- 

 marks that I have heard, that that is a custom that hasn't 

 been entirely outgrown yet. 



I feel that it is a peculiar privilege to come before the 

 members of horticultural organization and to bring to you 

 the welcome of the business men of Western Massachusetts. 

 There is peculiar significance in the fact that today, more 

 than at any period during the history of this community, 

 the business man of the community is interested in your 

 subject and in the subject of agriculture. There is no topic 

 which one can introduce into the conversation of any gather- 

 ing of business and professional men, and particularly in 

 this section of the country which has been referred to as 

 "The Effete East'', which will bring such an immediate 

 hearing and response, as the subject of agriculture or horti- 

 culture. 



Even in that great and select club, the University Club 

 in New York City, I have discovered that there is within the 

 organization a "Farmers' Club", a club made up for the 

 m.ost part of millionaires who have taken up farming for an 

 avocation, and who meet and discourse learnedly upon the 

 quality of fertilizer, upon the methods of fruit growing and 

 marketing, upon the question of seed and of soil, and it is 

 a very select wheel within a wheel. 



Now, is that a fad? No. It is business. Your modern 

 business man is a man of broader intellectual attainment ; he 

 is a man with a growing appreciation of the underlying prin- 

 ciples that govern the progress of business, and he knows 

 that, economically speaking, the importance and the balance 

 of power of a nation, a commonwealth, a community, depend 

 upon and are in direct ratio to its productivity; and hence, 

 following that process of reasoning, that ultimately, pro- 

 ductivity used in that sense, the productivity which is the 

 foundation of his business, means the productivity of the 

 soil. It is a business proposition. 



I glanced in the newspapers as I came down, and I ob- 

 serve that you have decided to hold your conventions in 

 Springfield, in Boston and in Worcester. We feel that you 

 have done us an honor, and a proper honor, in coming to us 

 upon this occasion. We think that you have shown excel- 



