132 Mississippi Valley Horticultural Society. 



ahead of nature in the use of cold frames and hot bed. He decided to aston- 

 ish his rural neighbors by untimely lettuce and radishes. All this was well 

 enough, but neither farm nor garden can be wound up and set going like 

 an eight-day clock. One of the most practical lessons in husbandry is uni- 

 form diligence. While he and his family were riding through the country in 

 their luxurious carriage, things did not take care of themselves. He set in mo- 

 tion a great variety of operations, but they lacked a balance indeed. With all 

 his boasted knowledge of astronomy, meteorology and kindred subjects, he 

 failed to note the proper time for transplanting, cultivating and harvesting. 

 A very genius in mathematics, he failed to keep the balance between expense 

 and income, debt and credit, interest and discount. These problems he did 

 not solve. The result, not the one aimed at, but bankruptcy, was soon 

 reached. Instead of a blessing he became a laughing stock in the commu- 

 nity. Like our first parents, he educated the people negatively. 



Let us take another picture, just as true to facts as the above. An educated 

 merchant, wishing freedom from indoor toil and constant contact with the 

 varying phases of human nature, bought a farm, the cultivated portion of 

 which was a tangled mass of brush, weeds, half used straw-stacks, decaying 

 rails, unkempt orchard, and an accumulation of rubbish generally. Having 

 been from boyhood a close observer of nature, he saw at a glance that she 

 had been lavish in her expenditures and adornments, which the slovenly far- 

 mer had not been able to obliterate. First began the work of renovation. 

 Father, mother, son and daughter, down to the little four year old, lent a 

 helping hand. A beautiful shade tree took the place of the rickety chicken 

 coop, not ten feet from the house. A rose bush superseded the ash barrel. 

 All the appliances for soap making were removed to a more quiet corner. 

 The bonlire made up of front yard adornments was magniiicent, and the 

 children wished there was more. The pigs and chickens soon came to under- 

 stand that their proper place was about the barnyard. The bare ground was 

 soon covered with a carpet of green. The soil of the garden, field, knoll and 

 ravine were carefully examined to know what vegetable, grain or tree best 

 adapted to certain localities. Succession of garden and held crops were sys- 

 tematically arranged, to make the most of a season and keep the soil in best 

 condition. The family did not leave behind them the polish and culture of 

 refined society, but this was all so thoroughly enveloped by a social, neigh- 

 borly interest that the hearts of their rural friends were won. They began 

 to enjoy the new state of things, and soon found that nothing, in the way of 

 cultivation or expense, had been undertaken but what they themselves could 

 do. Little by little the surrounding farms ))egan to t;xke on a more cheerful 

 a.spect. Weeds no longer had things all their own way. Neighborhood (juar- 

 rels about line fences and unruly cattle settled themselves and were forgot- 

 ten. Order and tlirift took the place of carelessness and negligence. 



i:ven the district school was startled into new life by the introduction of 

 new faces and new voices. The hum-drum routine of school life, without 

 progress and without interest, began to be oppressive to the children. The 



