Oct. 15. 1911 



637 



(Dqolp {^®mi 



A. I. Root 



Be not forgetful to entertain strangers; for there- 

 by some have entertained angels unawares.— Heb. 

 13:3. 



Our stenographer just reminds me, after I 

 had chosen this talk to-day, that this verse 

 has reference to Abraham when he enter- 

 tained the three angels who came to his tent 

 in the heat of the day. Now, you may 

 smile a little at my application of this beau- 

 tiful text; and you may think that what I 

 say should come under the head of high- 

 pressure gardening or the poultry depart- 

 ment. Well, let us get a start. 



Some of you older ones may remember 

 the time when tomatoes were not considered 

 edible. They were called "love-apples," 

 and were grown in the garden for ornament. 

 Finally somebody discovered that they were 

 "good to eat," and not poii^on, after all. We 

 had been entertaining angels and did not 

 know it. May be you think this a pretty 

 big stretch of the imagination; but at the 

 present time there is scarcely a canned vege- 

 table in the whole wide world that is put up 

 carload after carload as is the humble toma- 

 to. It is true that somebody started the 

 scare, some years ago, that the use of toma- 

 toes will produce cancer; but our expert 

 doctors and experiment stations, after mak- 

 ing careful tests, have brought in a verdict 

 in favor of the tomato — not guilty. Eating 

 too many tomatoes or too much of any thing 

 else, especially without thorough mastica- 

 tion, may induce cancer; but the tomato is 

 certainly a most i)recious gift from the all- 

 wise and loving Father; and yet for ages we 

 held it off at arm's length, and did not rec- 

 ognize one of our best friends. 



It is much the same way with sweet clover. 

 Just think of the racket we have had about 

 sweet clover being a noxious weed! and the 

 story even got into some agricultural papers 

 that ought to be ashamed of themselves. 

 Sweet clover to-day is one of our most valu- 

 able legumes, and in many places it is call- 

 ed the most valuable. It will grow where 

 nothing else will, and, in fact, it seems to 

 prefer the hardest and most unpromising 

 clay or gravelly soil; and after it has pushed 

 its roots away down and pumped \\\) water 

 and fertility, it makes a poor ground fertile 

 to grow other crops. Even in the alkali 

 lands, where almost nothing will grow, the 

 voracious sweet clover makes the soil sweet, 

 and finally assists in making the desert 

 lands "blossom as the rose." 



Well, just at the present time many folks 

 are complaining of the humble dandelion. 

 A "spud" has been invented to dig them 

 out, root and branch; and some of the papers 

 are telling us to go around with a coal-oil 

 can and drop a little oil on the crown. A 

 year or two ago I wrote up the dandelion 

 cow (1907. ])ages 840, 841, and 842), and 

 gave a picture of our orchard where the dan- 

 delions stood knee-deep. We proved, too, 

 that the dandelion gave the richest milk 



and the largest quantity of cream, and it 

 comes out in the spring ahead of clover. 

 After that, other agricultural papers took it 

 up, and people are just beginning to catch 

 on to the fact that in the early spring the 

 dandelion is one of the best plants in the 

 world for the dairyman. 



And this brings me to another great dis- 

 covery that I have just made. Our orchard 

 of about half an acre was heavily manured 

 some years ago when potato-growing was 

 my hobby. I think our last crop of potatoes 

 was grown under straw. The whole orchard 

 was covered with straw a foot deep, and we 

 fondly hoped it would choke out the dande- 

 lions. Not so. The dandelions evidently 

 considered the straw mulching was for their 

 special benefit, and they crept up through 

 it earlier in the spring than ever before, 

 with great healthy blanched stalks and 

 leaves that made magnificent greens. I 

 suppose most of you know that down east 

 the market-gardeners grow^ dandelions ex- 

 pressly for human food; and nice crisp dan- 

 delion greens early in the spring bring a big 

 price in the market. Of course, there are 

 people all over our land who have discovered 

 that the dandelions are not only healthful 

 but delicious, and they are out with their 

 sharp knives hunting rich stalks, to get the 

 first early dandelions. Now, everybody 

 knew (or ought to have known) that dande- 

 lions are good healthful food for human be- 

 ings; and' after the way we wrote it up they 

 ought to have seen they were good for the 

 cow. But my discovery is that they are 

 good for chickens, especially certain breeds 

 of them. This half-acre orchard I have men- 

 tioned is, at the present time, my poultry- 

 yard. It is surrounded by a fence of netting 

 four feet high, and another fence runs across 

 the middle, dividing it into two parts, and 

 still another through one of the halves, mak- 

 ing two small yards and one large one. My 

 daughter, Mrs. Boyden (formerly Blue Eyes) 

 has caught the chicken fever, and she has a 

 yard adjoining mv orchard, in which she 

 keeps White Wvaiidottes. Well, after I re- 

 turned from Florida I noticed there was not 

 a green thing in her yard — not even a dan- 

 delion; so I made an opening in my fence 

 and let her chickens, big and little, get into 

 one of the small yards in the orchard. Of 

 course, they went for the dandelions and 

 other green stuff with avidity. 



A few days ago, when we were gathering 

 the apples down in this yard, all at once I no- 

 ticed there was scarcely a dandelion visible. 

 There was a good growth of grass and some 

 clover; but the Wyandottes had snapped up 

 every dandelion as soon as it showed a bit 

 of green. Now, I do not know whether all 

 Wyandottes are so greedy for dandelions or 

 not; but I think most of the large breeds 

 that subsist largely on green food where they 

 can find it could be easily taught the trick 

 of eating dandelions. The other yards, 



