President Earless Address. 33 



growing country, but they grumbled and rebelled ; and they all suffered the 

 righteous penalty for their neglect of such a noble opportunity. But I well 

 remember the longing with which I considered that enormous bunch of 

 grapes and the impulse I had to go and find a country where they grow 

 grapes in big clusters. Now, I think that there are many thousands of men 

 and women who were little boys and girls a little while back like myself — 

 only a half century or so — who have been carrying visions of the great 

 grapes of Eschol in their brains ever since those early Bible readings. And 

 we have all been wanting to come to the land of Canaan ever since we found 

 out where it was— that we might see its fabulous fruits hanging in the golden 

 sunshine, and taste the perfumed air of its happy valleys, while we strolled 

 along the banks of the wonderful brook of Eschol, and, perchance, find op- 

 portunity to lift some of those big grape clusters that are not wholly of the 



imagmation. 



THE EARTHLY PARADISE. 



And so a few of us horticultural dreamers have come over the great fertile 

 plains, across the thirsty deserts, and have climbed the gigantic walls which 

 fortify you against invasion, to test for ourselves the climate and the fruits 

 of this earthly paradise. We think we like the land and the fruits thereof, 

 and shall make a good report of them to all the chosen people of Israel. 



My friends of the land of Canaan, we are glad that we came. We are glad 

 to be with you and to see the welcome which shines in all your faces. We 

 -come as fruit-growers, and gardeners, and forest planters, and builders of 

 homes, to greet our brethren in a land whose conditions of culture we have 

 long envied. We have come to study these new conditions for ourselves; 

 to gain new ideas which we may apply where our surroundings are less 

 favorable ; to compare views as to many questions regarding which we have 

 a common interest ; and to drink with you at the fountains of enthusiasm 

 which have inspired you to so many brilliant enterprises all along this 

 golden coast. 



HORTICULTURE. 



Horticulture is a broad term. It covers almost everything that makes 

 our country beautiful and sweet to live in. It embraces the operations 

 •of the fruit grower, the skillful manipulations of the gardener, the arts 

 of the landscape builder, and all that relates to the planting of forests in a 

 land that perishes without them. Every horticulturist should be a mission- 

 ary. He should be an educator of the public taste as regards trees and flow- 

 ers and lawn plantings and fruit gardens. He should be an enthusiast for 

 the beauty of his town. He should stimulate the making of parks, the 

 adorning of cemeteries and school-house yards, the planting of groups of 

 roadside trees. The true horticulturist will make his mark in the commu- 

 nity in which he lives. I think that one of the great needs of the time is a 

 generous enthusiasm for horticultv;ral improvement. We want tree-plant- 

 ing associations in every town in the land. Every man should not only 



