Proceedixgs of tee Fafjiees'' Club. 419 



fifteen years ago wliicli has not borne a peck. If we have no fruit 

 what is the use of talking about insects ? It is like locking the stable 

 door when we have no horse, Now, my failure is not for want of 

 fertility or cultivation, but the leaves evidently are aifected with 

 blight. Four miles from me is an orchard' mostly Baldwins, on a 

 western slope with timber belt on the east, and it bears every year. 



Pkesentation of a Gavel to the CHAiRMAif, Ms. ISTath.^ C. Ely. 



Dr. J. E. Snodgrass, on the part of the club, took the platform and 

 presented a gavel to the President, It had an ivory head in the 

 shape of a sheaf of wheat, a handle made from the wood of an apple 

 tree grown on Prof. Mapes's farm, ornamented with a grape vine, 

 with a strawberry at the extremity, all executed by one of the best 

 artists in this city. 



Dr. Snodgrass said : Mr, Chairman — Actiugonbehalf of a committee 

 whicli embraces many of the regular members of this club, I have the 

 honor to be the medium for expressing our sense of the able, the cheer- 

 ful, and impartial manner in which, for six years past, you have dis- 

 charged the office of chairman of this club, and as proof of that esteem, 

 I have the honor of presenting you this gavel, wliich in its workmanship 

 and material, we think has a beauty and a significance that will make 

 it of intrinsic value in your eyes. The head is of solid ivory, cut from 

 the tusk of an elephant, the type of dignity, strength and patient toil. 

 Its form is that of a sheaf of wheat, that has for ages been the emblem 

 of tillage and the sign of plenty ; representing the farmer's best reward 

 as well as his severest work. It will carry your mind back to the 

 time when the back-trying sickle had not been superseded by the grain 

 cradle, to say nothing of tlie reaper with pleasure-carriage and cradle 

 combined ; for these now indispensable improvements did not enter 

 into the wildest dreams of the devotees at the shrine of the golden- 

 crowned Ceres. Examine this handle at your leisure. You will find 

 carved on it not only the grape, that oldest and most widely grown 

 of all the small fruits already referred to, but that berry whicli comes 

 just when we most need its acid to neutralize the alkaline matter 

 derived from too much use of winter food. I allude to the strawberry, 

 which is represented on the end, of wliich it will suffice to quote the 

 quaint language of Dr. Boteller, as quoted by old Isaac Walton, 

 " Doubtless God could have made a better berry, but doubtless God 

 never did." Here, too, we have the rose, that oldest representative 



