fertilizers: — agricultural, intellectual, etc. 177 



attach less importance to a familiarity with the roots of Greek 

 verbs and to the gods of Greek fable, and more to an intimate 

 acquaintance with those divine laws of nature and of society 

 which are no fables, but great present and abiding realities. 



Adopt this method and we should have fewer one-sided and 

 narrow men, built up to a high point of culture on a single line, 

 but without breadth of foundation — a seven-story house on an 

 eighteen-foot frontage. Then, too, you would see fewer of those 

 literary fops who, because of a college degree, look down upon 

 some solid men who have no degree of college but a large degree 

 of brains. 



In speaking of Commercial Fertilizers, I am reminded of an 

 address that was delivered some six or eight weeks ago, before 

 the Commercial Club of Boston, with the very significant title of 

 " The Commercial Value of Ideas." It was on a line of thought, 

 in one of its leadings, peculiarly akin to what I am now seeking 

 to present to 3'ou upon Intellectual Fertilizers, to which we might 

 fitl}' assign, could we estimate their worth to the world, their 

 commercial value. 



Chauncy Smith in that address (some of you probably heard 

 it) shows how all the great industries of the world have sprung, 

 each in its turn, from a new idea, such as the idea in the mind of 

 Gutenburg, George Stephenson, Watt, or Bessemer. By their 

 inventions these men gave to their ideas a commercial value, and 

 vastly increased thereb}' the resources of mankind. "Hence it 

 is the duty of practical business men not merely to avail them- 

 selves of all these accumulated facilities for success, facilities the 

 fruit of ideas, but to make ample provision for the birth of new 

 ideas ; so that no germ of talents shall miss its opportunity for 

 development, and its chance thus to increase the power and 

 resources of man." 



Is not this, I ask, the key-note of the whole fertilizing the mind ? 

 The germs are there, and who shall tell us what may become their 

 commercial value if brought out and applied ? Of peculiar value 

 to the horticulturist is this fertilizing of the mind, not for a 

 mere hot-bed growth or a special crop, but in a way which 

 prepares the soil rich!}' for whatever he may choose to cultivate. 



Think first of one man well versed, indeed, in all the forms of 

 plants, and the best methods of plant-culture, and who is even 

 enthusiastic and successful in his work, but whose thoughts, and 

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