Vermont farmer. [volume] (Newport, Orleans County, Vt.) 1870-1877, 1873-07-11


tage Of local markets and direct contact with
our customers is amply sufficient, with the
energy, pluck and brains Of which Vermont
in pinch has never shown any lack, always
to keep for us the cream Of the market. We
want the squirting up Of just such competition
to develop our possibilities.
We passed our sabbath At Mr.. Priugle's
quiet, comfortable home, surrounded by gar
den, orchard, and spreading, fruitful vines.
Nowhere are the soothing influences Of ma
ture more gratefully felt than at such a
place, at such season Of the year. The
weather was perfect, the rest most grateful,
and the quiet chat exquisitely cOngenial
Our friend is engaged in work the results Of
which are but slowly developed, butpregnant
with vast possibilities of good. He is one Of
the three or four painstaking, patient, quiet
ly enthusiastic men on the American conti-
nent who are devoting their lives TO the la
Dor of working out the possibilities Of n.y.
bridization, or crossing of species, among
our agricultural plants, fruits, and flowers.
The combination Of these needful qualities
with the scientific knowledge, judgment, and
perfect delicacy, dexterity and conscientious
care essential to valuable results, both from
the practical and scientific points Of view.
will always make such men rare, and pre-
cious to the world. In the older countries,
as is well known, much has already been at
tanned by these operations wich is
of a very high and universally ae-
knowlsdged value; but even there the work
is but begun, and the field for similar labors
in America is neither narrower nor less prom
Using. Already Mr.. Pringle has important
results to show for his labor, with promise Of
far greater things to come But where the
beginning is in the blossom of the parent
plant, to be followed by the careful nursing
of seedlings by hundreds and thousands, the
testing of each result through years Of trial
in different soils, and under different condi-
tions, with the sitting and recording of these
results before a final showing Of the work
can be made, it is easy to see that whatever
the outcome may be, the scientific hybridist
will never leap to the sudden, easy notoriety
Of the lucky finder of chance Seeding.
What he achieves is by work, not accident,
In Mr.. Pringle's case this work is prosecuted
in the midst Of the cares of dairy farm,
aud under the detriment Of much ill-hcaIih
and misfortune. But the patient uudemon-
strative, resolute temperament Inherent in
his Scottish blood will tell in this as in every
other work it undertakes. If he were any
other than just the man he is, SO very scru'
puous aud eIacting in his own judgments
upon his own work, be would have already
been well known, at least to every horticul.
turist, and perhaps to every farmer in the
country. He has produced many most
valuable varieties Of potatoes, some Of cereal
grains, aud number of grapes of high
promise. He is engaged in hybridizing and
crossing the various species and varieties oil
apples, plums, cherries, and other fruits, the
results of which cannot yet in many instanc,
es be determined. But he has offered moth
ing for sale. He does not seem even to look
to the pecuniary reward of his arduous la
Dor, but to the achievement OF some high
ideal of excellence which as yet he thinks
he has not attained. He is the man
had Vermont in fact as in name an Agricul
tural College, chat would make its chair Of
botany and horticulture famous Throughout
the world We know what we write viii
strike painfully upon the sensbilities of Oul
modest friend, for he will feel that he ha'
not justified such eulogium before the world
but he can and ,0W,-upon that we do not
fear to make any stake within our ability.
We will try and complete the record oil
our weeks tour next week