THE president's ADDRESS. H 



manured, has borne potatoes and brocoli alternately for 20 

 years. And while strawberries and other fruit, as well as 

 apples, are being increasingly grown in the eastern parts of the 

 county, and their prospects for the year, together with those of 

 agricultural crops generally, are very promising, in the Isles of 

 Seilly flowers have become of late years (through the assistance 

 and encouragement of Mr. Augustus Smith and his successor) a 

 material source of profit to the growers. The value of the various 

 flowers exported from these Islands this year, consisting chiefly 

 of narcissus, lillies of the valley, ixias, and gladioli, probably 

 amounted to £1000, and I am told that nearly all the farmers 

 grow small quantities. 



Complaints are rife of the heavy charges made for convey- 

 ing market-garden produce by railway. An attempt has been 

 made to meet this by sending away potatoes in a steamer which 

 runs from Penzance to Grarston, on the Mersey, but as she only 

 runs in summer, this mode of transit is not available for the 

 brocoli crop. The high rate of speed necessary for conveying 

 perishable goods may justify a high rate of charge, but when 

 we find that owing to the cost of carriage Cornish vegetables 

 are being shut out of the London market by those from France 

 and the Channel Islands, and diverted to Liverpool and the 

 northern towns, it seems time that the Great Western Railway 

 Directors should see whether some reduction is not possible. 



Side by side with the produce of the land, above and below 

 the surface, goes on continually the harvest of the sea, which 

 seems to be ever increasingly appreciated. If I remember right, 

 I rather think that in the days of Homer, the leader of the 

 Greeks forbade his warriors from eating fish, as it was not con- 

 sidered good for training. And we have been told that here, in 

 England, at the Reformation, fasting was retained as part of 

 the discipline of the Church, merely with the object of obliging 

 people to eat fish, for^ the purpose of maintaining the class of 

 fishermen, and so keeping up the best supply of seamen for 

 the navy. 



The mere invention of such a story seems to indicate what 

 is no doubt a fact, that fish is regarded as a far more desirable 

 article of food now than it was formerly, and if it is true that 

 the eating of fish is good for the brain, perhaps in these high pres- 

 sure days of competitive education it may be but the natural impuls e 



