168 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



and the boundaries of knowledge have been so enlarged, that the 

 original meaning of a word may in no measure cover its present 

 significance. Thus a '' horticulturist" of today is looked upon by 

 the community at large as a man of other culture also. So true 

 is this that probably general surprise would be expressed if any 

 person were admitted to membership in this very society, bearing 

 only the name, " Horticultural," who was not a person of general 

 culture as well. 



This is, indeed, the da}'- of " specialists," — men who make some 

 one subject or limited line of pursuit a central study, — this in all 

 the professions, — but the specialist himself of today must be 

 first a man of broad culture, else he cannot secure the confidence 

 of the community in his own limited field. 



Allow these preliminary remarks to be my apology for permit- 

 ting my subject, " Fertilizers," to lead beyond the limit of the 

 hortus, — the garden, — even to those broader fields, which, as I 

 assume, every man of culture should know best how to till, in 

 order that society at large may reap the ripened harvest which 

 each man's life ought to give as his contribution to the public 

 storehouse. On this basis let me indicate the line of thought 

 which I propose to myself, viz., to show how one and the same 

 general law is applicable to fertilizing or rendering productive the 

 soil, the intellect, the moral sense, and the spirit of patriotism ; 

 and that law is that we must aim, first of all, to secure those aids 

 or appliances, — fertilizers, we will call them, — which will most 

 promptly and fully develop into available form the native powers 

 latent in the soil, in the mind, and in the moral sense, thus con- 

 verting latent powers into productive forces ; and this in distinc- 

 tion from merely putting into the soil, or into the mind, a given 

 amount of material ready for use and for assimilation. One process 

 is the development for practical ends of Nature's hidden stores ; 

 the other is chiefly making use of and depending upon this extra- 

 neous or foreign supply for the crop, in the field or in the mind. 

 This in the first place. 



Second : — This law demands that when we do make use, as we 

 wisely may and must constantly', of these extraneous supplies to 

 help develop or to supplement whatever Nature furnishes, — when 

 we use in the field commercial and barnyard fertilizers, and for 

 the mind books of study and the thoughts of other men, — we are to 

 inform ourselves in advance, by careful analysis of the soil or of 



