1898.] ANNUAL REUNION. Ifi3 



fess to considerable uncertainty in ray mind when I attempt to 

 answer satisfactorily to myself why I am invited to speak at a 

 gathering of horticulturists, where your speakers, no doubt, 

 are expected to illuminate more or less some horticultural sub- 

 ject. I hope that your committee thought I looked like a 

 horticulturist, if so, I feel flattered decidedly. I am in the con- 

 dition of the three men in the story, which you may all have 

 heard, — of the Englishman and the German and the Irishman. 

 They met and the Englishman in his pride was telling how he 

 was often taken for the Prince of Wales. The German replied 

 that that was quite a coincidence, that he was often taken for 

 the Emperor William ; and Pat said, "I met a man the other 

 day and he cried out, ' Howly Moses ! is that you?'" 



My own training and work has been altogether in other lines, 

 and I am rather dismally conscious that if I attempt to speak 

 on a subject appropriate to the evening, I shall simply make a 

 spectacle of myself, wading about in my own ignorance. Some 

 years of my youth and some in later life were spent, however, 

 in digging earnestly after Latin and Greek roots with more or 

 less success. I think I know fairly well at what season the 

 seeds of these varieties may best be sown, and what sort of soil 

 should be selected, and in what sort of soil dry-rot is encoun- 

 tered. I am frequently told that I have been working at the 

 deadest kind of dead roots and could not possibly And a sale in 

 any up-to-date market. Then I have some knowledge of alge- 

 braic roots, cube roots, and roots of all sizes and shapes ; and 

 so many unknown quantities enter as factors into this branch of 

 gardening that it should not be undertaken by anyone who 

 expects more than fairly certain returns, in fact, personally, I 

 should be inclined to place algebraic roots little higher in the 

 scale than that other variety, dead-beats. 



I have had considerable experience in keeping hens, and it 

 may puzzle some of you to see the connection between hens 

 and horticulture ; but if you happen to be a hen fancier and your 

 neighbor has a fiincy for a garden you realize that you don't 

 need to puzzle yourself al)out the connection, the hens look 

 after that. I did try once, I recall, to have a garden and keep 



