92 BOARD OF AGEICULTURE. 



replacing them with qualities in every way desirable. With 

 a scanty stock of brain-material, how could one reasonably 

 hope to improve the quality of vegetables, and produce new 

 and choice varieties of fruit, and hasten or delay the time of 

 its maturity ? Let no one for a moment suppose that these 

 achievements are the work of chance : they come to the man 

 who loves and studies his business, who watches the growth 

 of plant and fruit in every stage, who anticipates their every 

 need, and who breathes on every leaf and communes with 

 every flower. Brain, like muscle, derives its power from 

 exercise and discipline, and this is accomplished only by 

 close and accurate thinking ; and it should be remembered 

 that the only thinking that bears fruit is systematic thinking. 

 Many a young man imagines himself thinking when he is 

 only day-dreaming. Thinking implies an active state of 

 mind ; calling up images, holding them fast, and arranging 

 them in order, — not a passive condition in which troops of 

 ideas flit across the mental vision like figures in a kaleido- 

 scope. Thinking, worthy of the name, is work, — systematic, 

 calm, connected work ; and the man who has not his mind so 

 disciplined that he can thus command it, is no thinker. The 

 power to think correctly is an accomplishment to which there 

 is no royal road, but results from years of patient toil and 

 practice. It is a conceded fact that mankind in general have 

 a sort of inherent aversion to systematic thinking. Hence 

 the doctor thinks for his patient, and the lawyer for his 

 client, the clergyman for his parishioners, and the journalist 

 for the public. Nature answers no impertinent questions, nor 

 does she wink at our ignorance or pardon our mistakes. She 

 is ever ready to respond to intelligent inquiries, and is par- 

 tial to those who interview her most persistently and most 

 frequently. I have endeavored to impress on you the parar- 

 mount importance of thinking correctly, for the reason that 

 all achievements, whether in the mechanic arts or in the 

 domain of agriculture, in the laboratory of the chemist or in 

 the realm of literature, result from accurate and systematic 

 thinkino^. Whatever is worth doinoj at all is worth doins^ 

 well, is a maxim written in all languages, and is as old as the 

 race ; but how seldom is this verified in practical life. If the 



