Origin and Importance of the M. V. Uort. Society. 17 



North, from Pittsburg to Denver, from Galveston to Duluth — all, all in one 

 vast body, united by one common interest, are here to-day, enlisted in the 

 -cause which brings us together. And while we sit here at the mouth of the 

 great Father of Waters, looking back over this grandest of all countries as our 

 pride and our possession, we should bear in mind that there is no interest 

 more common to all than that which we represent. Every railway and 

 steamboat, every factory and furnace, every village and hamlet, every farm 

 and fireside, ever}' merchant prince and railway magnate, as well as daily 

 laborer and indigent pauper, is directly or indirectly interested in the great 

 •cause of practical horticulture which calls us together. 



God himself gave to us the fruits of the field and the lilies of the valley, the 

 roses of Sharon, and the vine and fig tree, and told us to cultivate and make 

 glad our hearts and our homes. 



The science of horticulture applied to the cultivation and propagation of 

 all these things has wrought wonderful changes in the past half century, and 

 to-day more progressive strides are being made than at any previous period 

 of the world's history, yet we may be only at the threshold of greater future 

 •developments in our profession. To the labor of men now living, the world 

 owes more in some particulars than to all generations gone before. Labor 

 and thought and science were iheir tools, and the same are ours, and we 

 should be equally as diligent in applying them for the benefit of the human 

 race. 



Labor, labor, is the watchword of all human greatness; labor of mind as 

 •well as muscle. We are all here in the capacity of laborers; in the caj^acity 

 of men who earn their bread by the sweat of the brow ; of men who have 

 built and now uphold one of the great arms of American industry. Why 

 should we not feel proud that we are laborers ; laborers from field and prairie, 

 from forest and farm, from mountain side and sunny slope in this great val- 

 ley of ours, the very vineyard of the Creator, who have come here to talk, 

 sympathize and instruct each other; to bring specimens of luscious fruits 

 and fragrant flowers to exhibit to the world what labor and the Giver of all 

 good gifts have bestowed upon us and our country ? 



It is through the labor of mind or body, or both, that all the blessings of 

 -our civilization flow and life receives its sweetest moments, and it is of ours 

 that we should feel the proudest. No branch of American industry has wit- 

 nessed more progress or a greater revolution than has horticulture in her 

 varied branches, and I feel in my own heart that no man should feel prouder 

 of what he has accomplished than the American horticulturist. 



There is no position so lofty, no calling in life so honorable, as not to bow 

 to this great and honorable avocation. 'Tis labor, labor of mind and body 

 "that has made it so. 



Standing, as we do to-day, in the midst of the grand achievements of this 

 great American industry, and especially our own Mississippi valley, sur- 

 rounded by the wealth and magnificence of two hundred millions of fertile 

 .acres, and cities and towns whose architecture is often as beautiful as those 



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