216 Wisconsin State Horticultural Society. 



who use tobacco, and this is doubtless true, but the fact that there 

 are few drunkards and scoundrels who do nol use it, bears its own 

 comment. 



Next to tobacco as an evil, and one reaching a larger class, 

 stands the use of condiments and highly seasoned foods. Only 

 plain and natural food is demanded by a natural appetite, and 

 such alone promotes health of body and mind in the highest de- 

 gree. What we eat has much to do with what we think and do, 

 and a man partakes of the nature of his food. We have not yet 

 arrived at that stage of accuracy at which we can reduce Joseph 

 Cook's Byology to so many pounds of well broiled beefsteak, or 

 Huxley's Lay Sermons to so many dinners of salmon, or Long- 

 fellow's tender, heartsome rhymes to the small fruits of the Cam- 

 bridge garden ; yet it is nevertheless true that none of the above 

 mentioned intellects subsist largely on side pork and sauer kraut. 

 Gross food and over-eating are enemies to the health, beauty and 

 activity of body, soul and spirit. Be temperate in all things, is- 

 the first great commandment in the decalogue of virtue and talent. 



The mother who has fortified her children by simple tastes and 

 pure habits of living, has prepared them for infinitely higher en- 

 joyments, even at the table, than the Eoman Vitellius ever found 

 in his thirty thousand varieties of game, and she has done more ; 

 she has given to the world its highest ornaments in intellectual 

 and spiritual strength. The sweet, pure bodies of such children 

 will hold souls like unto them ; and when, from city home and 

 country farm house, a generation shall arise that has learned to 

 keep the body and the soul clean, the nation will be well governed, 

 because, " putting away all fi!thiness of the flesh and spirit," men 

 have learned to govern themselves. 



