'■2SQ TRANSACTIONS OF THE HORTICULTURAL 



One other example. When the Board of Trade building, on the 

 corner of Washington and LaSalle, was opened in 1864 or 1865, I 

 made a hundred baskets, or stands, and a thousand button-hole 

 bouquets. Half the florists of the time then helped me. The cost 

 was $200. It was more of an event — or either of them would be — 

 than where thousands are spent now. 



Another word and we will leave the florist. Thirty-two years 

 even in the whole country, but also in what we will call our West, 

 has seen his business grow, and you may take the contiguous states 

 west of this; Ah! you may take Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin, and west 

 to the Pacific, now all dotted with florists, and for every dollar that 

 could be shown to have come into his hands then for floral goods, it 

 would be easy to show a thousand now, and very possibly double 

 that again. Such growth as this leaves no question, no cavil, as to 

 its overtopping anything that can be shown in the nurserymen's line. 



Fruit growing now is, in even this state, a tremendous one in the 

 aggregate, although I doubt if as vigorous as ten or twenty years ago. 

 Our apple men seem to have lost heart with their losses. Our peach 

 men are not so lively with expectations and hopes as then. Yet 

 surely if we cannot all have such trees, we ought to be able to have 

 apples, and every village, hamlet, farm and home should gruvv at 

 least for home use, fresh vegetables and fruit in their season. Rightly 

 grown and the best sorts, picked fresh from the trees and vines will 

 surely go ahead of the best the big cities can send, and leave that 

 much money in circulation at home. 



A few words as to the people's parks, and here we have virgin 

 ground in the whole country. All have sprung up since the time 

 named. New York had no Central; Brooklyn no Prospect; Phila- 

 delphia no Fairmount, one of the most charming spots in the world. 

 It is not likely then that Chicago had any parks in 1857. Now Chi- 

 cago has a vast chain of parks surrounding it, and, in the way of 

 floral decorations, second to none in the country, if in the world; all 

 within twenty years or so. It cost the property owners millions to 

 get them, and half a million a year to keep up these expensive adorn- 

 ments, but then they get it all back in attractions and visitors to the 

 city. Then they have them for their own recreation for nothing. 

 They are great educators. They help the florists, however, more 

 than the nurserymen. 



One other horticultural feature new and striking, is the cities 

 of the dead, the cemeteries. Formerly, they were forlorn looking 

 places, with whitened tombstones, located on some hill; now, they 

 are charming spots, with winding walks and shaven lawns, here and 

 there fine breadths of trees, shrubs, hedges and stone curbs; iron 

 chains banished, and all, now, in one uniform lawn-like expanse. 

 The best examples in the country, possibly, are Forest Home, of 

 Milwaukee, Laurel Hill of Philadelphia, Spring Grove of Cincinnati, 



