42 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



form without side branches. Many tracts I know of are suffering from 

 want of thinning which with it would be making good timber. 



Mr. Garfield: I agree with Mr. Glidden that we must not forget the 

 practical when dealing with the sentimental. Because I would not permit 

 the cutting of the elm in my yard, should I also refuse to cut the mature 

 elm in the forest? But tree murder is the crime of America against 

 the universe. I have a thorough appreciation of him who sees sentiment 

 in the groves and forests; who sees 



"Sermons in trees, books in the running brooks. 

 And good in everything." 



If we can in any way stop this killing of trees needlessly, we should do 

 it. One place to do this is in the school room. Teach the children, and 

 through them our children's children, to love and reverence them. I know 

 that Miss Gaeoline J. Baetlett will add to these sentiments, and so I 

 will not enlarge upon them, but introduce her. [Miss Baetlett is pastor 

 of the Unitarian church in Kalamazoo, and impressed her hearers as a 

 lady of broad and cultivated mind, able in high degree as a thinker and 

 orator, yet losing nothing of the charm and nobility of womanliness. 

 She read the subjoined essay, which was received with sincere applause 

 both for its beautiful thoughts and its admirable literary style.] 



THE humanizing INFLUENCE OF SYLVAN BEAUTY. 



Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen : 



Kindly permit me to begin my paper by relating a few incidents point- 

 ing to its conclusions. 



A year ago last summer, on my way home from a tour of the White 

 mountains, I passed, one glorious afternoon, northward along the eastern 

 edge of Lake Champlain. As our train neared St Alban's bay, the sun 

 was just setting behind the Adirondack hills, and the broad lake was 

 flooded with a marvelous beauty. As I sat feasting my eyes upon the 

 scene, I noticed that the only other occupant of the car, a lady, who sat 

 some distance in front of me and on the other side, was glancing at inter- 

 vals, with little interest, upon the comparatively tame view from the 

 eastern window, apparently unconcious that there was anything of greater 

 beauty within the range of vision. The missionary spirit was roused in 

 me, and going to her I said: "I beg pardon, madam, but do you know you 

 are missing a superb sunset?" Her reply, polite enough in form, was 

 nevertheless something of a shock. With the air of satisfactorily 

 accounting for her indifference she answered: "Thank you, but — I live 

 here." 



A friend of mine who visited New Hampshire and expatiated upon the 

 fascinating beauty of her forest-clad, rock-bound hills, was thus answered 

 by an old farmer of that region: " If you had to git your livin' off'n these 

 hills, I guess you wouldn't be quite so 'thusiastic." 



While amid the magnificent primeval forests of Puget sound, this sum- 

 mer, it made my heart ache to see the slaughter, by axe and fire, of those 

 giant cedars and firs which, lacking a present market, are by the owners 

 counted naught but cumberers of the earth that must be cleared and por- 

 tioned with hasteful, wasteful thrift, into parcels and lots, eager to be 

 embraced in the ever widening wave of the "city's limits." 



My use of these incidents is to show that familiarity, as that of the 



