STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



33 



one hundred per cent, in a year. Again, it is duty, first to his family; 

 for the man who does not provide as many of the comforts of life for his 

 family as practicable does not fulfill his nuptial vows. The stock-raiser 

 who does not provide a shelter from the summer's sun is just as unwise, 

 nay criminal, as though neglecting to provide sufficient food; and what 

 so good and cheap as a living tree — and if an evergreen, it is all the better. 

 A good evergreen thicket is a better shelter for stock than thousands in 

 Illinois will get this winter. As a hen-house it never gets lousy, and as a 

 climatic modifier it is unsurpassed. The nurserymen of Illinois have 

 large stocks of evergreens which are becoming overgrown, and which 

 they will sell for less than cost, and any farmer who will carefully plant a 

 hundred will make a profitable investment. If a home (farmer's home) 

 is nicely fitted up with fruit and ornamental trees, roses, shrubs, vines, 

 flowers, large and small fruits in abundance, and the house well stocked 

 with good books and papers, all supplemented by good-humored polite- 

 ness, fewer boys would seek the hardening, polluting influence of city 

 life; and the ones that did would often sigh, "How dear to my heart are 

 the scenes of my childhood." 



There is a vast army of noble workers trying to get men to Heaven 

 by faith and works, and how lamentably they fail. We are told that 

 " faith without works is dead," and that a tree (society) is known by its 

 fruits (results); therefore, let us get results (fruits) either with or without 

 faith, and then if we don't get to Heaven we will get a kind of heaven 

 nearer to us and be made better and happier by it. It will have a reflex 

 action on our families, improve their health and happiness. The example 

 will spread throughout a neighborhood, be taken up by some traveler 

 and transplanted to some distant place, to again take root, spread and 

 bless. 



In conclusion, let me urge everyone to engage in horticulture for the 

 reasons : (i) That it pays as a business. (2) It improves the appearance 

 and adds to the value of the farm. (3) It adds to the health and com- 

 fort of the family. (4) It improves a neighborhood and prevents the 

 predicted trouble occasioned by the destruction of the forests. (5) It is 

 a living monument to the person engaged in it, long after his departure 

 to the untried realms, and unimpeachable evidence that the world is the 

 better for his having lived in it. 



L, C. Francis, of Springfield, another member of the committee, 

 was not present and had not sent in a report. 



Parker Earle, of Cobden, from the same committee, being called 

 upon, read the following, which he said was intended only to introduce 

 and give direction to discussion: 



Horticulture, as far as it means the culture of all desirable trees and 

 flowers, the making of fine lawns or the surrounding our homes with 

 rural beauty, or the production of all possible varieties of fruits for home 

 use, is to be commended to and pressed upon the attention of every farmer 

 in the land. 

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