SOCIETY OF CE^■TEAL ILLINOIS. 203 



it embraces, and how it leads from one thing to another, until the 

 imperfect horticulturist becomes a scholar. 



To the horticulturist belongs the forest, the garden, the flowers. 

 The trees are needed for fruit, shelter, shade, and ornament. The 

 material of which they are composed, builds our houses and barns, 

 and is manufactured into every conceivable form to supply the wants 

 of man. It is impossible to estimate their value. 



The palace and the hut are alike dependant upon the trees for 

 construction. The vast machinery which man has invented is 

 largely composed of wood. The furniture in our homes, whether 

 plain or carved, or inlaid with mother-of-pearl or gold; whether rose- 

 wood or mahogany, walnut, oak or pine, they were once kings of the 

 forest. From the yacht to the steamship, which is launched on the 

 ocean, and is buoyed on its turbid waters, we see what was once 

 growing in the forest. 



They keep us warm in winter when used as fuel, and cool in 

 summer as a shade. We must preserve them, we must cultivate 

 them. 



G. W. Minier, President of the American Forestry Congress in 

 the United States, says that twenty per cent, of all the land should 

 be planted in trees. 



They influence the rain-fall, and in a thousand ways they con- 

 tribute to our happiness aud comfort. 



The sentiment of the poem, '^ Woodman, Spare that Tree," 

 should be felt by every American citizen. 



Of all the varied productions of the soil, fruits, in their almost 

 endless variety, are the only portion of our food which Nature fur- 

 nishes ready for our immediate use, and by this we are admonished 

 that fruit should form a large portion of our daily nourishment. But 

 to secure such supply, in pleasing and wholesome variety, we must 

 be diligent in planting and cultivating those fruits adapted to our 

 soil and climate. If Ave hope to enjoy the fruits of our orchards, 

 our vines and our berries, we must cultivate them. If we hope to 

 enjoy the flowers, the shrubs, the evergreens, and the ornamental 

 trees which can be grown in this latitude, we must cultivate them. 

 Of all the meaTis for smoothing the wrinkled brow of care; for tran- 

 quilizing the mind of the suii'ering invalid; for elevating the mind 

 to higher and nobler purposes; and for making life happy, none 

 have more influence than a home surrounded with the wealth of 

 Nature, displayed in trees, fruits and flowers. , 



While in the enjoyment of life, erect your own monument — 

 plant an orchard, set out fruit trees every year; plant them not for 

 the present only, but for the future, and when your children and 

 children's children, or the stranger that may come within your gates 

 to rest beneath its shade, and eat the fruit thereof, your name may 

 be spoken of as one of the benefactors of mankind, if he who 

 causes two blades of grass to grow where only one grew before, is 



