STATE HORTICULTUEAL SOCIETY. 73 



thereby. One more picture for your consideration is the overworked 

 wife. She is anxious to do her part ; husband wants more buildings 

 and machinery ; expenses must be curtailed ; he must have 'help, so 

 she will double her work instead of having a good strong girl to 

 help her. She has been highly educated, and is a very accomplished 

 woman, but has made a drudge of herself until she knows nothing 

 of what is going on around her. Long ago she gave up her music 

 that cost her so many hard hours labor ; then her fancy work, that 

 was such a rest to her when she was tired ; then her reading — no 

 time for that. Sit down to read when she was through her work 

 and nature would assert herself, and she would fall asleep. After 

 awhile the elasticity is gone from her step, the bloom from her 

 cheek and the sparkle from her eye. Instead of the cheerful sing- 

 ing voice, it is almost a wail ; then the health succumbs, and the 

 overtaxed strength refuses to act. The consequence is an early 

 grave or an invalid wife. This is a subject very dear to me, and 

 as I am, fortunately, not one of this class, I cannot leave this subject 

 without this admonition : Remember love is the balance wheel. 

 Make it your business to know she is not working beyond her 

 strength. You will not need to ask ; you can tell without a ques- 

 tion. Avert the evil while you can control it. 



In conclusion : Members of the Horticultural Society are 

 largely farmers. Some of them will spend hours and days to pro- 

 tect themselves against the ravages of the curculio or codling moth, 

 and this is right ; but while you are solving this mental problem 

 think of the physical one ; of seeing there is plenty of small fruit 

 growing ; and please remember an absolute essential to its maturity 

 is a tight fence. In carefully digesting this essay you find my text 

 for "Home Adornment" is : " Two souls with but a single thought ; 

 two hearts that beat as one." 



Our lives are songs ; God writes the words, 



And we set them to music at pleasure ; 

 And the song grows glad, or sweet, or sad, 



As we choose to fashion the measure. 



We must write the music, whatever the song, — 



Whatever its rhyme or raster ; 

 And if it is sad we can make it glad ; 



Or if sweet, we can make it sweeter. 



The following on the same subject by 



MKS. J. H. ELLIOTT, PRINCETON. 



I present to-night a minority report; an excuse for those who 

 adorn their homes with neither the flower, the shrub nor the trailing 

 vine. Profoundly do I believe in homes; very little in what is com- 

 monly understood as home adornment. Whose homes are we con- 

 sidering? Our homes. The homes of gardeners, nurserymen, farm- 



