32 AGRICULTURE AND RURAL-LIFE DAY. 



MR. BURBANK's love OF CHILDREN. 



I love the blue sky, trees, flowers, mountains, gi-een meadows, sunny brooks; 

 the ocean when Its waves softly ripple along the sandy beach or when pounding 

 the rocky cliff with its thunder and roar; the birds of the field; waterfalls, 

 the rainbow, the dawn, the noonday, and the evening sunset — but children 

 above them all. Trees, plants, flowers — they are always educators in the right 

 direction ; they always make us happier and better ; and if well grown, they 

 speak of loving care and respond to it as far as in their power ; but in all this 

 world there is nothing so appreciative as children — these sensitive, growing 

 creatures of sunshine, smiles, and tears. 



— Luther Burbank. 



LOUIS PASTEUR (1821-1895). 



This great French chemist made the wonderful discovery that 

 there are vegetables which prey on animals, just as animals prey 

 upon vegetables. These flesh-eating plants, which are known as 

 bacteria, float in the blood and cells of animals, and though they 

 are so exceedingly small that it takes a very strong microscope to 

 see them at all, they make up in numbers and in appetite what they 

 lack in size. Dr. Pasteur found also that there are good bacteria, 

 as well as harmful ones, and that even the harmful kinds could be 

 so changed that, when introduced into one's system, they could do 

 no ill, but on the contrary that they would preserve one from the 

 attacks of the more powerful bacteria. On these discoveries of Pas- 

 teur rest in large measure the science and art of modern medicine. 



With the knowledge he thus gained, Pasteur himself was able to 

 end the silkworm plague in France, to cure chicken cholera, and the 

 deadly disease, anthrax in cattle, and to perfect an almost infallible 

 treatment for hydrophobia, or rabies. It is said that he added more 

 to the wealth of his country than both France and Prussia together 

 wasted in the bloody war which they fought in 1870-71. 



JUSTIN S. MORRILL (1810-1898). 



The Land-Grant Act. signed by President Lincoln in 1862, was 

 the work of Mr. Morrill, who at the time was a Congressman from 

 Vermont. This act gave to each State a certain amount of land, the 

 proceeds from the sale of which were to be used for colleges of agri- 

 culture and the mechanic arts, "without excluding other scientific 

 and classical studies." Mr. Morrill was the author also of the bill 

 approved August 30, 1890, for the greater endowment of these 

 colleges. There are now 69 institutions in the United States estab- 

 lished under these acts. 



