STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. Ill 



some of the great railroad corporations are employing today 

 landscape gardeners, as they are called, to go along their lines 

 and make improvements about their depots so that it will become 

 more and more attractive to travel and to the public, and in that 

 way it is proving a pecuniary advantage to those corporations. 

 In the same way it will be a pecuniary advantage to any city to 

 make public improvements by building better roads, by having 

 better sidewalks, by having better kept streets, by having more 

 parks along their streets. 



But it seems to me that a still broader view should obtain of 

 the whole subject, and that is the improvement from an educa- 

 tional or cultural standpoint. Now take a great exhibition of 

 fruits of this kind. Do not you suppose that whoever comes in 

 here and enjoys the beauty of these flowers and these fruits goes 

 out a better man or a better woman than he was when he came 

 in ? — absolutely cannot go out a worse human being. And you 

 will find that in general the highest type of mankind, of farmers 

 let me say, are those who are interested in the cultivation of fruit 

 and flowers. I think I am safe in putting that, with no deroga- 

 tory influence or intention with regard to all other classes, yet 

 we find among the fruit growers and the foresters as high a type 

 of character as you will find in any class of farmers that can be 

 nam.ed. 



Xow the educational influences of civic improvement are great 

 all along the line. If we can do something to interest our chil- 

 dren in the cities in the cultivation of flowers, in the cultivation 

 of fruits and in a greater appreciation of the beauties of nature, 

 we are doing much to elevate them, to carry their minds into 

 grander and nobler spheres and to carry them away from the evil 

 and the degradation which we all know is too common in our 

 cities. 



Let us look at this subject, therefore, from the broadest pos- 

 sible standpoint and realize that we are elevating and educating 

 our boys and girls as well as our men and women. 



