116 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



an acre apiece. The largest estate is held by the Duke and 

 Duchess of Sutherland, and amounts to 1,326,000 acres. 

 With such a distribution of property, and with a poor law 

 costing thirty-five million dollars annually, what outlook is 

 there for the English farmer ? What hope of ever acquiring 

 possession of the little plot of land on which he works and 

 spends his days, or what motive to induce him to improve 

 property he cannot leave to his children ? A recent w^riter 

 puts it in a nutshell when he says : *' In England the agri- 

 cultural laborers, with the lands about them all taken up and 

 so unsaleable, and with a poor law to provide for them under 

 all the calamities of life, whether brought about by mishap 

 or by their own wilful vice, have l)ut little motive, even if 

 they had the opportunity, for saving." 



The Chaiemax. Unless you have some questions you 

 would like to ask the lecturer, the meeting will stand 

 adjourned until to-morrow morning. 



Mr. Avery. I can verify what President Goodell said, 

 in regard to those large pears. In England, when I lived 

 there, it was customary among families giving large parties 

 to hire those pears from Covent Garden market to set on the 

 table for show. If anybody had attempted to buy them they 

 would have cost about a guinea, — that is, five dollars. I 

 have repeatedly seen them displayed in that way. 



The Chairman. I would like to ask how they keep their 

 potatoes ? 



President Goodell. They are not put into the cellar, 

 they are kept in the open air or in an open shed, so as to 

 allow a free circulation of the air. 



Mr. Hale. I can say that I saw at the Georgia State 

 Fair in Macon pears weighing twenty-eight, thirty and a 

 half and thirty-two and a half ounces, grown in this year of 

 our Lord 1892 in the United States of America. 



The Chairman. We will take your Avord for it, Mr. Hale. 



President Goodell. I would like to ask Mr. Hale what 

 he has to say about Ww flavor of the pear to which he has 

 referred ? 



Mr. Hale. It was not (juite so good as an old-fashioned 

 pumpkin. 



