68 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



farmer and gardener away from the old business that enabled 

 him to maintain the individuality of his own home. That is 

 why I come to-day to argue for the poor man as a gardener. 



Now, what did these farmers do when their work was taken 

 away from them ? A few tried gardening, and failed because 

 they half starved their plants. This part of New England 

 was not a stock country, and these men believed in the old 

 orthodox doctrine that somehow nature has given special 

 privileges and miraculous qualities to nitrogen, potash and 

 phosphoric acid when in the form of stable manure. I spent 

 many a day when a little boy with wheelbarrow and shingle 

 picking up the manure which extravagant horses had dropped 

 on the public highway. We practised homoeopathic manur- 

 ing, and grew only the extract of the crop. An old darkey 

 in the south was tried for stealing a hog. The case against 

 him was clear, and his lawyer told him to stand up and throw 

 himself upon the mercy of the court. He forgot the word 

 and said, " I frows myself on de ignorance of dis court." In 

 like manner these farmers threw themselves upon the ignor- 

 ance of their tomatoes and cabbage, by assuming that these 

 plants didn't know enough to need plant food. 



The American soil culture for the past fifty years has been 

 a succession of just such losses of products and hunts for 

 substitutes. At one time New England was the greatest 

 corn-producing section of the country ; but one by one great 

 industrial changes have swept over the country, and washed 

 away the ties that once held the individual small farmer to 

 his few home acres. The opening of the Erie canal took 

 New England people away from home, and set them to grow- 

 ing food which they sent back to compete with those who 

 remained at home. The great development of the trunk 

 lines of railroad, the war, the national homestead law, — all 

 these and dozens of others have changed society and indus- 

 trial development. 



In the constant shuffle and jump for new positions that all 

 this has caused, it is no wonder that many of the duller ones 

 have given up and prefer to stand still rather than to whirl 

 with the tide. We sometimes wonder why "the average 

 farmer" is so slow to absorb what we attempt to feed him. 

 The trouble is that we have tried to feed him too much at a 



