THE farmer's institute movement has been the strongest lever ever applied to the elevation of farming. It has spread slowly, but it has never lost an inch that it has once gained. The long period of trial, experiment and adaptation is past, and the movement is now extending itself everywhere in the full assurance of success. In some kinds of farming and in many places, it has transformed the whole atmosphere and practice of the farmer. Dairying, stock-farming and grain-growing have received the largest benefits, for the mass of farmers following these businesses have been densely ignorant. In fact, it appears as if these farmers have never looked upon their farming as a business, but as merely a means of subsistence. Farmers are now instructing farmers. The advice - once called theory - of professional men has become the practice of many.

Horticulturists, as a class, have had comparatively little benefit from the institute movement. This is due largely to the fact that fruit growers and gardeners must know their business well in order to gain even a livelihood, and having known it in a measure, they have not needed the enlightenment of institutes to so great an extent as some others. But times are changing with the horticulsing competition in business problems or disribution of products and adaptations of kinds and methods, ravages of numberless insects and fungous pests, are yearly demanding greater attention. We need horticultural institutes, and a strong movement is making in New York to secure them for that state. Other branches of farm practice have been broadened and ennobled ; why not horticulture ?

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THE crudest notions are still current in regard to the danger to human life from the use of arsenites upon fruit trees. It has been proved several times that no danger results from a discreet and careful use of the poison, and yet people talk about the absorption of the poison by the roots and even by the fruit itself. It must be borne in mind that only such materials as are in solution can enter plants, and that both Paris green and London purple are practically insoluble in water. And the plant also has a power of selection, by means of which it rejects many injurious substances. English growers have not yet adopted the practice of spraying fruit-trees, and among the English people in general there appear to be many crudities afloat concerning the matter. The following extract from correspondence of the London Echo is a sample :

" When we remember that the skins of all fruits possess asmotic properties - the skin being simply a membrane or porous structure - the dangerous nature of the process will be seen at a glance. Even nuts absorb and suck up water, so that the shrivelled, dried-up kernel within swells out and again completely fills the shell. Should the practice spread, I fear that the use of the king of fruits may one day become as deadly as the thorn apple, which for years was said to be used at the incantations of the witches. But although the American growers have been cautioned against the dangerous nature of arsenic as an insecticide, the system continues to spread, so that to-day 75 per cent. of them use it in preference to any other. The purifying effects of all kinds of fruit acids and juices are proverbial, and it becomes all who are interested in an increased consumption of fruit to see that the products of English or foreign orchards are put before the public in good condition. I do not wish for a moment to blight the prospects of the American apple trade, but unless the system I have exposed is stopped the British public will do well not only to confine itself solely to English apples, but to all kinds of English fruit".

The comparison drawn between the shells of dried nuts and the skins of growing fruits is puerile. Experience and chemical analysis are worth more than fanciful exaggerations. There is no record that a person has ever been injured by eating fruit which was sprayed in its early stages.

AGRICULTURE is more than tilling soil or raising produce. It is a factor in civilization. It does not take its place among the great factors in the evolution of the race simply because it furnishes food for the hungry, nor because it was Adam's occupation, nor again because it holds man naer to nature. It is great because of the reciprocal relations which exist between it and other great elements of civilization. Not only do other arts depend upon it, but it depends upon them. It is profoundly influenced by all the arts of life. Of recent years, transportation has overturned it. The farmer is fond of thinking that inasmuch as the food of the world comes from the soil, his occupation should be the first to thrive. But he is learning, fortunately, that agriculture can not dictate all things. The world owes no man a living until he earns it. So the study of agriculture is become two-fold. It is a study of particular methods of farming, and it is a study of the broadest principles of trade throughout the entire globe. It is a factor in political economy. It is in this dignity of view that our greatest educators are approaching agriculture. The inevitable laws of trade are teaching us that we must look for relief in cheaper and better products, not in higher prices.

And it is significant that the only way to cheapen production is by the application of more labor and greater skill.

A man who possesses no particular knowledge of farming may still sweep the horizon of agriculture with the keenest vision, and he will discern failure and encouragement where they are least expected by the farmer. This boldness of view is admirably illustrated in the following extract from an address by President Adams of Cornell:

" The processes of transportation have revolutionized agriculture. In past ages it was not uncommon for famine to sweep the land of half the people. It was not until this century that means were found for transplanting the superfluities of one country to cheaply supply the wants of another. It is only 100 years since improved roads were constructed in England. The steam engine, the steamship and the railroad are productions of the nineteenth century. Until 1870 it required 2,200 tons of coal to propel a steamship of 3,000 tons, leaving only 800 tons of freight capacity. In 1860 it cost $3.56 to transport a ton of freight a mile; now, with the introduction of Bessemer steel rails, the cost is reduced to an average rate of 86/100 of a cent per ton per mile. The resources of southern Russia, India and Australia are made available in the same manner as our own. A laboring man can get a year's food for his family transported 1,000 miles for the price of one day's labor. It is no longer profitable for any farmer in eastern United States to farm in the old haphazard way. We must do as they are doing in the old world.