112 STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



this lesson upon some I shall be exceedingly grateful ; if we 

 could impress it upon all I should be exceedingly happy. Now 

 that is one of the lessons I hope you may carry home, and I am 

 going to ask Prof. Munson, in connection with making up the 

 final report of this meeting, to give us for publication a list of 

 some of the shrubs and plants in a suggestive way which we 

 may utilize for decorative purposes. 



DECORATIVE PLAiNTING FOR THE HOME. 



Prof. Munson : One characteristic of the American people 

 is the spirit of unrest, that spirit, you know, which drives a man 

 across the continent to California ; which leads a man to forsake 

 his profession or forsake the pulpit and go up into the gold 

 fields of Alaska ; it is that spirit which leads a nation to overrun 

 a new country and take possession, while the cabinets of more 

 conservative peoples are querying whether it is necessary to 

 interfere to preserve the balance of power. One characteristic 

 of the American people also is their fondness for the word 

 "settle." So fond are they of this that every account, from 

 state debts to farm produce, is closed only by being settled. 

 Young men will start in life and they say they have settled. But 

 God pity the young man, or the young woman, — or both — who 

 shall settle down. Now I admire in a young man, or a- young 

 woman, the quality which we may call snap, that good old New 

 England quality of "gumption." Nevertheless if there can be 

 united with those qualities, the quality of contentment or affec- 

 tion for environment, we have the best combination of quali- 

 ties. So then the first consideration that distinguishes the son 

 of Ishmael from the man who loves his home, is one of environ- 

 ment. I have often said that a man has no business to have a 

 home unless he takes enough interest in that home to make it an 

 attractive place for himself and for his family. And as our 

 worthy Secretary has intimated, it is not a question of great 

 expense to make that home place attractive. All that the man 

 has to do is to go out into the woods and the pastures near by 

 and bring in his arms the trees and the shrubs and the flowering 

 plants which will make that place attractive. 



