34 STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



this sentiment has made but little if any lodgment, in some it i» 

 growing very slowl}' while in others it has made marked progress. 

 Among the latter class ma}^ be mentioned the town of Sidney, which, 

 if not the banner town in this respect, is at least a strong leader. 

 In this town, both on the river and middle roads, great progress has 

 been made and scores of farmers have removed their road-side fences 

 and cultivated the land close to the highway. The initial steps, steps 

 absolutely necessary though hard to be taken, in the march of im- 

 provement, of removing the fences and subduing the land have here 

 been taken, but, alas! must I sa}^ it, too many never get beyond 

 the utility idea. I can almost see some old farmers now (I could if 

 it was July) jumping up and down, clapping their hands and chuck- 

 ling inwardly and saying to themselves, "Why ! why didn't we think 

 of this thing before ; here is a lot of land that in the past has 

 absolutely run to waste or fed my neighbors' cattle and we have lost 

 hundreds of dollars in hay, grain and potatoes ; but we are not going 

 to lose any more ; this land is rich from the washings of the highway, 

 or from decayed rubbish or from long enforced idleness ; moreover, 

 in the future it will not cost us much to keep up its fertility for in 

 most cases it is gratuitously and permanently enriched and now we 

 are going to make the most of the privilege." So they have reasoned, 

 and thus it is with a few rare exceptions that the grand opportunit}' 

 has been seized upon and utilized. They have raised hay, grain and 

 potatoes and instead of shade or ornamental they have set out apple 

 trees. 



In one sense the proprietors of these lands have a perfect right to 

 do as the}' please with them, and in another sense the^' have no 

 right to ignore or trample upon the rights of the public ; one of 

 those rights, of course, is the ''right of eminent domain" in which 

 not sentiment but utility plays a leading part ; another of those 

 rights is the sense of what is proper which includes poetry, sentiment 

 and art. Now there may be both sentiment and poetry in tasseled 

 corn, in waving grain and in blossoming rows of potatoes, but I 

 prefer to read poetry of that kind a little farther off when riding in 

 the country, and if it was put to a vote whether the lands not actu- 

 ally needed to keep in repair the highways should be wholly utilized 

 in the growing of crops or, in part, devoted to sentiment by planting 

 of ornamental trees, I thnik that nine-tenths of the public would 

 agree with me that the latter course was the one to be pursued. 



