450 TliANSACTI02,'S OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 



list of other thoroughbred varieties of golden grain, that used to roll 

 out forty or Hfty bushels per acre ? AVhy, by slip-shod management 

 the seed — by not putting forth proper efforts every season to 

 maintain the original purity of the thoroughbred variety — has run 

 out. Xow, then, in order to get back to the same standpoint in 

 the improvement of grain that was once occupied, farmers must 

 make themselves familiar with the laws of the vegetable kingdom, 

 and produce new and thoroughbred varieties of such grain and other 

 seed as they desire to cultivate, and tlien study the requirements of 

 the growing plant as to the conditions of soih And when the efforts 

 of the intelligent husbandman are brought to harmonize in every 

 particular with those laws that control tlie development of the pro- 

 ducts of the held, he may rel_y on the production of a beautiful crop 

 with the same assurance that lie now waits for the opening of the 

 growing season. 



Dr. J. V. C. Smith. — I rise, Mr. Chairman, to request the report- 

 ers to give Mr. Todd's remarks to the people. I must express my 

 unqualified approbation to what he has said. He always talks sound 

 sense, and I have always admired the very modest and unassuming 

 mamier in which he communicates whatever he has to say before 

 this Club. His thoughts are always so well expressed and so instruc- 

 tive and practical, that I sometimes apprehend we do not appreciate 

 what he says ; and what gives a greater value to Avhat he says is", it 

 comes from a source that inspires us with confidence. And there is 

 another gentleman bearing the same name, who possesses a remarJc- 

 able faculty of making himself useful, and what he has to say very 

 instructive. I allude to Kev. John Todd, of Pittsfield, Mass. I had 

 the great pleasure, a few days ago, of listening to a lecture of that 

 distinguished speaker, on the immense agricultural resources of Cali- 

 fornia, from whence he had just returned. It was truly wonderful 

 to hear him tell of the immense crops that the tillers of the soil gather 

 in that golden region, from the slighest solicitation. He drew the 

 most charming and bewitching pictures of the overflowing abundance 

 of that delightful country. Why, if I were a young man, I could 

 not be induced, by any ordinary consideration, to stay away from 

 that delightful country. We have no correct conceptions of the 

 wonderful fertility and the great breadth of country that is spread 

 out west of us. If our surplus population could be persuaded to 

 abandon their dismal abodes in our overflowing cities, and go away 

 intu that beautiful country whene the climate is so salubrious, and the 



