EIGHTEENTH ANNUAL MEETING. 87 



gen when it was put in the month ; another, whether borax 

 mixed with water was orood for freckles. So you see the 

 duties of the experiment station director are muUiform and 

 do not leave us much time for recreation. 



ToASTMASTER Hale : Last week it was my pleasure to 

 be over at Cornell University and give a little talk to the stu- 

 dents in Professor Craig's class. One of the students hap- 

 pened to be a Chinaman and he asked me several questions 

 relating to our work. After the class was over, I was pass- 

 ing through one of the halls and saw the Chinaman talking 

 earnestly with one of the girls. As a grandfather, I felt it 

 my duty to chide them, so I said, "Young man, you are in 

 this country to study horticulture ; what do you mean by this 

 sort of nonsense, talking with girls in the hallways?" He 

 replied, "Mr. Hale, I study the peach." So you see what 

 they are teaching at Cornell. I will now ask Professor Craig 

 to address you. 



Professor John Craig: Mr. Roastmaster — that is what 

 our friend, the presiding officer, ought to be labeled. Over in 

 England they do this sort of thing professionally ; when they 

 can find a man who has as much assurance as our friend Hale, 

 and as good a gift of gab, together with a string of taking 

 stories at his tongue's end, they give him a handsome fee for 

 presiding as "Roastmaster" — and that is what I shall call Mr, 

 Hale to-night, the Roastmaster. 



I am unlike the boy you may have heard of who was suf- 

 fering with a pain under his waistband because of eating too 

 much green fruit. When approached by a believer in faith 

 cure and told to think there was no pain in his stomach, he 

 replied, "Well, I guess I know, because I have inside infor- 

 mation." If I had possessed a little inside information 

 regarding the possibilities of my duties to-night, I might have 

 been in a better position to have instructed or entertained you, 

 for I realize that there is no man so dangerous to an audience 

 as an unprepared speaker, who often, like many of our rail- 

 roads, has poor "terminal facilities." Let me congratulate 

 you in your progress as a society. 



