place for the study of natural history. While there at work, or at play, we unconsciously become botanists, meteorologists and entomologists. Experiments made in the garden have frequently led to discoveries of great practical value. We give the concluding portions of the address in the speaker's own words: "The garden is the practical school in which we test our theories of cross-breeding and hybridization. The Seckel pear, the Northern Spy apple, and the Adirondac grape, are supposed to be the results of chance hybridizing. The darting of a honey-bee from flower to flower may originate valuable varieties of fruit, so as to justify a new reading of Watt's familiar verse: How doth the little busy bee Improve each shining hour, And plant new seedlings all the day In every opening flower. Taking advantage of hints thus furnished, our professional fruit growers have succeeded in producing many new and desirable varieties. It was by such experiments in the gardens that Mr. Rogers, of Salem, Mass, produced his new grapes; Dr. Kirtland, of Cleveland, Ohio, his famous cherries, and Rev. C. E. Goodrich, of Utica, his hardy and prolific potatoes. It is now about fifteen years since Mr. Goodrich commenced his experiments with the seed of a wild variety of the potato, imported from South America. A full account of all that he has patiently suffered from the skepticism of friends, the narrowness of his means, the difficulty of his undertaking, and the unsatisfactory result of many of his experiments, would read like a romance. But success finally crowned his faith and perseverance. The Garnet-Chili potato is probably the most hardy, prolific and desirable variety now cultivated in the northern states. As the potato crop of the whole country amounts to more than one hundred millions of bushels in a year, worth at least $25,000,000, it is a very moderate estimate to say that twenty-five millions of bushels of Garnets were harvested last autumn. It has been estimated by an intelligent cultivator and observer, that the planting of Garnet-Chili potatoes last spring prevented a loss to the country of not less than $3,000,000; so that the new variety is worth all it has cost of time, labor, study, patience and money-only the profit comes to the public, not to the originator. He can hold no patent right in the Garnet-Chili potato; he has generously given it to the world; and now, in old age and feeble health, he is without the worldly comforts that ought to sustain the closing years of a public benefactor. Yet, if every owner of a farm or garden, who has been made richer by the experiments of Mr. Goodrich,* were to send him the value of a dozen Garnets, he would be rewarded with a tardy, yet ample and well-earned fortune." At the last annual meeting of the New York State Agricultural Society, Mr. Orange Judd, of the American Agriculturist, proposed that a testimonial be presented to Rev. C. E. Goodrich, for his successful efforts to improve the quality and hardiness of the potato. This proposal received the hearty concurrence of all who were present, and $600 was subscribed on the spot. * * * * * I am not trying to be logical to-day, but rather to illustrate by facts how much of good, both pecuniary and æsthetic, may be made to originate in the garden. I happen to have knowledge of a different experiment recently made with the seeds of the hop tree (Ptelia trifoliata), as a substitute for the flowers of the herbaceous hop vine. The hop tree is as easily raised as the seedling apple, and is worthy of cultivation simply for ornamental purposes. Its abundant seeds contain the bitter essence of yeast, of an excellent quality. It is just possible that the time may come when a pair of hop trees will be thought as essential to the completeness of a garden as an asparagus bed or a tomato patch. We have on exhibition today, among the culinary wonders of our fair, a sample of hop biscuit, made by Mrs. Everett Case, of Vernon, and so superior in lightness, whiteness and sweetness, that they must have completely upset the discretion of the discretionary committee. The mention of Dr. Noyes will call up to many minds here the wellremembered image of one of Clinton's early horticulturists, who would have taken special delight in such a holiday as we are keeping. How the heart leaps even at fancy's view of that Wizard of the Retort, who played with the mysteries of science as deftly as Thalberg may sport with the keys of a piano. How awkward and embarrassed he looks, until thought surrounds him with his own contemporary trees, or transfers him to that marvelous laboratory, which was as much a part of himself as its shell is a part of the tortoise; that indescribable sanctuary of natural science, or, if you will, that chaos of chemical apparatus that should have been piously removed— the building and all its contents-to the college grounds, surrounded by iron palisades, and kept as a concrete ocular demonstration that Walter Scott's Antiquary is not an impossible character. If anybody wanted anything, how natural and easy it was to go straight to Dr. Noyes for it. No matter what it was that was wanted, be it a thermometer or precocious cabbage plants; be it a steam engine or a cure for cancer; the analysis of an ore, or a receipt for a grafting wax; a sure way to make a fortune, or an infallible trap for the plum weevil, or any other conceivable pair of incongruous wants, and Dr. Noyes was always ready to fill out the order, with anecdotes of Daniel Webster, his classmate, and Dr. Backus, thrown in for seasoning. If there was a disease to be cured that other doctors pronounced incurable, or a problem in science to be solved, or a machine to be invented that had already upset other men's brains, Dr. Noyes was just the man to be delighted to do it, and take his pay whenever it chose to come. By his child-like enthusiasm for horticultural pursuits, his rare skill in managing the details of the garden, and his daily conversation, always rich in practical instruction, Dr. Noyes contributed essentially to that education of the general taste in Clinton, so brilliantly illustrated in the array of fruit that blushes along these tables to-day. Clinton honors the memory of another lover of the garden, whose name will spring to the lips of many among you, when I say that the medicine he carried in his professional rides over these hills and up and down this fertile valley, was made doubly potent by his smiling face, his genuine sympathy with sorrow, his passionate love for music, and trees, and flowers, and whatever else is beautiful and good. The memory of Dr. Hastings is closely linked with that of another lover of the garden, venerable alike for his years and his virtues, who was ordained seventy years ago as the first pastor of the first church in Clinton That good pastor could heartily endorse the poet's assertion: "That nothing earthly can keep its youth, So far as we know, but a tree and truth.” This was one of the secrets of a long and prosperous ministry. Through out a quiet pastorate of forty years, and a life of eighty-seven summers, he kept up the electric glow and freshness of feelings that belong to early manhood, by his obedience to the truth and his industry in caring for his trees and his garden. Many of you remember how it was with Dr. Norton. You well remember how, soon after his settlement among you, he purchased a few acres for a home, near enough to the church to hear its solemn bell knolling a departed spirit, yet far enough to ensure a regular supply of pleasant walks and rides to and from the village meetings. You remember how he used to bring home from his occasional visits to the east, choice grafts cut in the orchards of his native place, and carefully set them in seed. ling stocks of his own growing. When he made pastoral visits he would take along a few scions in his pocket, and teach the pioneer farmers how to propagate valuable fruits by the easy process of grafting. If their fingers were stiff, or clumsy, or busy, the good pastor would put in the scions himself, now and then dropping a quiet hint about the wild Gentiles, who were grafted into the Church of Christ, so as to partake of the root and fatness of the olive. The productive fruit trees that were thus planted or grafted still stand as a living symbol of the richer fruits gathered from the seed of his spiritual sowing; seeds of holy thought and hopes of endless joy in that pure and sunny clime, where no frost ever comes to blight, where he rests with the departed of his people in the paradise above. Hon. Ephraim Hart did much for the early horticulture of our place. Other names might be mentioned. The history of the town of Kirkland is closely linked with a history of the fruit trees that give both adornment and endowment to the first gardens that were planted here by the pioneers from Connecticut. Cut down one of the old apple trees planted by Eli Bristol, and a counting of the rings in its trunk will carry you back to the year when Baron Steuben rode up College Hill to lay the corner stone of Hamilton Oneida Academy. Kirkland had the good fortune to be settled by men who were lovers of the garden and fine fruits. The horticultural tastes and habits of these early settlers are so strikingly reproduced in the horticultural tastes and habits of their descendants, and these tastes are so fragrantly illustrated in yonder Dianas, Rebeccas and Delawares, that one is tempted to quote the scriptural proverb, with an accommodation, and to say of them: "The fathers have eaten sweet grapes, and the children's teeth are not set on edge." Among the curious things brought to light by this year's fair is one of the rude piows with which the gardens of Clinton used to be vexed into mellowness some seventy years ago, about which time the bears might have been tithing Major Pond's crop of corn on the very spot where we are now assembled. That antiquated bull plow over yonder belongs to James Dana Stebbins, the oldest native voter of Clinton, who also exhibits to-day his certificate of membership in the first Oneida County Agricultural Society, signed by Gen. Garret G. Lansing, of Oriskany, and Theodore Sill, of Whitestown. Forty-two years ago this society held its first fair at Whitesboro. Its members wore heads of wheat in their button-holes as badges. There Col. B. P. Johnson, now the efficient, courteous and indefatigable secretary of our State Agricultural Society, sported his wheat badge with the other members; and we may guess that he there felt his first kindling of enthusiasm in a cause which be has labored to promote so long and so successfully, that his name and praise are now permanently linked with our best crops, our best live stock, the best labor-saving machines in our fields and barns, and our best agricultural books. From an interesting letter written by Mr. Gaius Butler, an intelligent farmer and surveyor of Kirkland, I learn that: "The original Oneida County Agricultural Society was organized in or about the year 1821. As it was a novelty in this region, it excited considerable interest, and a fair competition for the premiums. The ground selected for the fair was between the village of Whitesboro and the Oneida Institute. Manufactured articles were exhibited in the Court House. A premium was offered for fat oxen, and a specimen exhibited not often exceeded at the present day. A mammoth porker, from Waterville, weighing over 900 lbs., was on exhibition. Major Rice was the presiding genius of the day. He wore a cocked hat, and a sort of continental coat, and carried for his sceptre a corn stalk two or three feet long, and as many inches thick. Of course, his word was law. He kept a sharp eye on the dice tables, so common then at public gatherings, and did not hesitate to handle the owners thereof without mittens. It is not recollected that any of the labor-saving machines of the present day were then on exhibition. The fair was held two days. Long tables were set in the spacious and beautiful enclosure in front of the mansion of the late Judge Platt, afterwards owned and occupied by the late S. Newton Dexter. Here members of the society and their guests dined at the close of the first day. The second day closed with an address and the declaring of premiums. The premiums at the first fair were paid chiefly, if not wholly, in silver pitchers, tumblers, and the like. A change was made the second year to cold, hard dollars-either Mexican or American. "I well remember," Says Mr. Butler, "the pleasure I felt in being awarded half a dozen of them for the second best breeding mare; another Butler, of Sauquoit, having taken eight of them as the first premium. "The second fair was held on the public square, fronting the Court House. The major was on hand, as before, and was just the man for director. Hon. Henry R. Storrs delivered the address from the steps of the Court House. Though he was doubtless more at home in Congressional debates, his offhand remarks were well received and worth remembering." In our peaceful enjoyment of this harvest home holiday; in our good natured rivalry with fruits and flowers from the garden; with live stock from the farm, and work of cunning fingers from the parlor and the shop, we ought not to forget that our kinsmen and neighbors and friends, some of whom were with us a year ago, are now exposed to quick, unnatural death on distant fields of heroic strife. Yet how easy to lose thought of the war at a place like this, where all nature about us is so eloquent of peace, so suggestive of good will among men! In all these broad, green fields you hear no sound of angrier strife than the noon-day ticking of emulous crickets and katydids. In all these brilliant woods you see no shallow, half-covered graves. There is no smell of human slaughter, no hint of mourning and lamentation. October, as if it were the Joseph of months, is arrayed in its coat of many colors. The trees are gaily robed, as for a carnival. The gentian's sweet and quiet eye Looks thro' its fringes to the sky. The birds have sung their cheerful good-byes, unconscious that their flight to warmer latitudes would be over armies that are deciding the sublimest, bloodiest issue in the history of our race. Throughout those golden, misty, pensive days of autumn, when the chill of sudden sunsets tells us the aged year is soon to die; while we are filling our barns and cellars with stores for the winter, let us be thankful to God that we are permitted to uphold our country's flag, and our Union's integrity, without sacrificing the prosperities of the farm and the workshop. Let us be devoutly thankful that with us the sanctities of the church and the fireside are not touched by the blight of war; that our gardens and farms and cemeteries are not trampled by the heels of rapine. The festival we keep to-day may remind us of a promised era, when swords shall be beaten into plowshares, and spears into pruning-hooks. In the late flowers of the garden, happy insects are murmuring idyls of peace. The flowers themselves are a prophecy of peace. Without shrinking from the duties and self-denials of a true patriotism, let us ask God to fulfil the prophecy, and to send us the Pracc. O flowers! the soul that faints or grieves Are hidden in your healing leaves. Help us to trust Thee on and on, The blood-red trouble of the dawn. Dawn of a broader, whiter day, A dawn beneath whose purer light All guilt and wrong shall fade away. At the close of Professor North's address, the society voted their thanks, and requested a copy for publication. T. B. MINER, Secretary. LEVI BLAKESLEE, President. |