HORTICULTURAL REMINISCENCES 37 



Now old Uncle Daniel meant well, and he believed this 

 thoroughly, but it was a great shock to him when one day 

 he found a man with his knees all dusty, who had been 

 down hunting for half a dollar that somebody else had 

 dropped without knowing it. I sometimes wish I had the 

 old gentleman's faith, but, unfortunately, I have lived long 

 and hard enough to know that some men wear on their 

 knees the devil's earmarks, rather than the Lord's. 

 GcThere are lots of consumers in the great cities who are 

 looking for the Lord's earmarks on the apple. You have 

 taught them on all occasions to look for the rich, red, 

 striped apples, and, in looking for them, they run across 

 Ben Davis, finding anything but the Lord's earmarks when 

 they put their teeth into it. You men are partly respon- 

 sible for this. You have gone about bragging of your 

 Baldwins, and then refusing to grow the apples you bragged 

 about ; so that our western friends have tried to live on 

 the reputation you have made. And so, I say, it is not 

 going to be all plain sailing for the red apple. It will 

 take a number of years to get the Ben Davis earmarks out 

 of the fruit. The Sutton Beauty and the Baldwin have 

 got to hustle as never before to get back what rightly 

 belongs to New England. They will do it, in time, if you 

 men continue to tell the truth about your apples, and have 

 faith enough in your own words to make these New 

 England hillsides bloom with this noble fruit. 



SECRETARY GOLD'S HORTICULTURAL 

 REMINISCENCES 



HORTICULTURAL REMINISCENCES was the 

 subject of a very interesting talk by Secretary T. S. 

 Gold, of the State Board of Agriculture. His earli- 

 est memory was of eating apples, when but two and a half 

 years old, from the hand of his grandmother, who died 

 some months before he was three years old ; so there could 

 be no mistake as to his early start in a love for the products 

 of horticulture. 



The grafted varieties of apples common at that time were 



