SOCIETY OF CENTRAL ILLINOIS. 1B5 



out upon him their choicest blessings and to him is granted the 

 friendship and brotherhood of the King of kings. Man is God's 

 noblest work. In him is centered all that can awaken within us the 

 reverent. 



But the question arises. What is it in man that so absorbs and 

 transfixes us? Not his comliness of person, — though that were 

 enough — but that deeper, nobler attraction, his cultivated mind, 

 towards a pure, refined soul, an admiring world gravitates. As 

 remarked previously, spirit study is the theme of the age. It is the 

 magnet of present thought. The secret of soul nobility is receiving 

 the latest scientific investigation. It is the problem of the nine- 

 teenth century. 



The perishability of the beautiful, creates a pang with every 

 admiring emotion. When we contemplate beauty that is born to 

 fade, a sigh of regret escapes with every exhalation of silent applause. 

 Music however intoxicating, must cease; scenes however entrancing, 

 must vanish; physical charms however pleasing, must yield to change. 

 But beauty of character is enduring. 



" You may break, you may shatter the vase if you will, 

 But the scent of the roses will hang round it still." 



True beauty belongs to man and is within. It is a development 

 and not a gift. Its accession lies within the reach of every rational 

 being. 



WESTERN HORTICULTURE AND HORTICULTURISTS — 



A REMINISCENCE. 



BY THOS, GREGG, HAMILTON. 



An octogenarian, who has resided for more than half a century 

 in the State of Illinois, should have a far greater knowledge of 

 horticulture and horticulturists of the west than the writer of these 

 lines claims to have. In his early days, in a mid-western state, 

 horticulture was in its infancy, and, like most farmer boys, he knew 

 little more of the art than to plow and hoe corn. 



Apple orchards were common even at a much earlier day in Ohio 

 and other Western States — many of them consisting mostly of seed- 

 ling trees; yet, grafted apples were not uncommon. Seedling 

 peaches grew well in Central Ohio, and the tree was much longer 

 lived than now. Of budded sorts, he remembers none in those early 

 days, and of grafted apples, he calls to mind most conspicuously the 

 Bellflower and Pennock — both of which grew and bore well and 

 were favorites in the orchards of his neighborhood. There were 

 doubtless other kinds, not now recollected. Of insect depredators, 

 he knew nothing. He remembers seeing an occasional worm in 

 peaches, presumably the offspring of the curculio; though of the life 



