.8 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



The earliest known horticultural implements were the "pruning hooks," 

 spoken of in holy writ, showing that tiiere was a belief that pruning was a ben- 

 efit if not a necessity. As intelligence developed it was found that tillage and 

 culture were a benclit, that as time passed and wants multiplied, became abso- 

 lute necessities for the maintenance of human life and progress, man, with 

 only his hands, soon found he must have other helps, and differing from the 

 rest of the animal kingdom, which were as perfect in the art of constructing 

 their habitations at the early dawn of creation as to-day, soon brought into use 

 his God-given power of thought, that formed for his use and help implements, 

 though wonderfully crude at first. The increasing humanity demanded an 

 increasing supply of wiiat Mother Earth could give, and this demand has gone 

 on and on, and is still as urgent as ever, and bids fair to be while time shall 

 last. 



The stern maternal parent of invention — necessity — still asserts her author- 

 ity, and is as unyielding in her demands as though )io progress had been made. 



Professional horticulture was not known a few years ago in our country. 

 To-day it has come to be one of the i)rominent factors of internal and external 

 commerce. The slow process of hand labor, the simple hoe and deft fingers, 

 -with the prostrate form of the gardener in the noon-day sun would fall far 

 behind in the race of supplying tlie demand of to-day for tlie vegetable market 

 of the world. There has apjieared the horse-hoe and the hand wheel-hoe, the 

 pulverizer, the harrow, the roller, and marker, the seed-drills for hand and 

 horse power, rendering the labor of one man equal to a score by the older meth- 

 ods. The minutest seeds are now sown with perfect accuracy, while the next 

 row is marked. The most delicate plants are protected while the miniature 

 plow, cultivator, or harrow is passed swiftly over the ground, lightening up 

 and stirring the soil and destroying the ever present weeds. 



What is true of the vegetable garden is equally true of the orchard and fruit 

 garden. The pestilent insect has not only to confront his old enemy, the birds, 

 but patented machinery and chemical compounds for his destruction. Fruit 

 ladders, fruit pickers, patented fruit packages both honest and "snide," are 

 now a commercial commodity and complete in themselves, ready to the hand 

 of the horticulturist. To give a description of these would be an endless as 

 well as a needless task. The people of to-day travel and read. The agricult- 

 ural press is replete with cuts and descri})tions, while at the fairs are to be 

 found actual machines for inspection, with the elofpient and affable vender to 

 instruct and explain. Should we turn back our tlioughts, then, and note care- 

 fully the changes and improvements of the last fifty years, we are led to ex- 

 claim, " Wonderful indeed is the power of human intellect." Would it be as 

 allowable to send forth our thoughts in the other direction and allow our 

 imaginations to picture the im[)rovcments yet to be wrought? 



From the slow-plodding and patient ox of a hundred years ago, hitched by 

 a rude stick on his horns to a ruder one for a plow, disturbing the iiative soil, 

 we have come to behold the beautiful steel implement, polished like a mirror, 

 moved with rapid strides and undcviating accuracy over the fields by the steam 

 engine. Though not a pro)ihet, nor the son of a prophet, yet may we not be 

 allowed to predict that the next fifty years will show far greater improvements? 



To-day steam has become too slow to meet the demands of impatient man, 

 and the lightning has demurely yielded to the command of his quicker intel- 

 lect, and now as meekly and unerringly carries our messages as did the post- 

 man of olden times, not allowed as of old, when it rent the heavens around 



