302 TRANSACTIONS OF THE HORTICULTURAL 



tivators in the country. His experiences in this direction were 

 quite different from those of our friends, the Graves'. We are 

 told he quit the apple business very suddenly, and went out to 

 do general farming. He had the largest and, probably, the 

 most refractory and unmanageable farm ever owned by any of 

 his descendants. It is an employment that has its special fasci- 

 nations, that calls out and disciplines many of the best faculties 

 of the mind, and yields ample returns in enjoyment and material 

 profit. It brings you near to nature, where you can watch her 

 in some of her most secret and loving ways, where you can 

 study her mysterious and matchless work, where you can feel the 

 throbbings of her heart. In the structure of a leaf, in the un- 

 folding and coloring of a flower, an art and a skill are manifest 

 that rival all human effort. How the wealth of her interest and 

 the quickness and tenderness of her sympathy are shown in her 

 ready responses to all your intelligent solicitations. The essen- 

 tial, ultimate secret of your success lies in your intimate acquain- 

 tance with her spirit and her hidden processes. How often you 

 have found that you could woo her into most attractive and help- 

 ful moods by kind and gentle persuasions, while she turns upon 

 you in wrath, if you would traverse her plans or cross her pur- 

 poses. God's ways with growth and decay, with tree and leaf, 

 with plant and flower, with the blossoming and the fruitage, are 

 the limitations of farm study, the boundaries of your art, the 

 law of your work. It was accounted as the signal proof of Solo- 

 mon's superior wisdom that he knew all the plants and trees of 

 garden and field, " from the hyssop that grows on the wall to the 

 cedar of Lebanon." 



Horticulture has had its attraction for men in all ages, and the 

 wisest and princeliest have found delight and instruction in its 

 pursuit. The festive and magnificent old monarchs, way out on 

 the banks of the Euphrates, spent their leisure hours on their 

 return from bloody conquests in their hanging gardens that 

 revealed their beauty and shook their odors from the lofty sum- 

 mits of their palaces, the wonder of the world. In such a place 

 can one find the recreation of a passing hour, a respite from 

 weary care, a study and an employment for a busy life. Here 

 the poet can find inspiration for his sweetest song, the philoso- 

 pher food for his most profound reflections, the devout per- 

 suasive call to the most profound worship. 



Were we to press the subject to its limits, we might recall the 

 fact that the gardens of earth wrought into forms of beauty by 

 human hands, with their stately trees, their cool, shaded bowers, 

 their placid waters flowing along banks robed with green and 

 fragrant with flowers, the fruit hanging ripe and golden from 

 many a bough, these Edens of earth are the types and the pro- 

 phecies of all that is bright and beautiful in the land beyond the 

 flood. It has already been sufficiently indicated that horticul- 



