210 TKANSACTIONS OF THE HORTICULTURAL 



and stimulated so as to produce a perfebt character; but it would not 

 do for us all to mold our liber after one ideal pattern, for no one 

 type of character can possibly embrace all the human beauties and 

 beatitudes. 



" Our lives are mosaic; your own has been placed 

 In a vacancy no other life could have graced; 

 Fill it well — thus will grow the harmonious whole, 

 The brilliant design, one stroke nearer the goal." 



We are living in a fast age, when every production must be 

 pushed ; in other words, when nature's growths must be sooner 

 brought to maturity. Man is getting impatient, and can no longer 

 look upon the sturdy oak tree as a symbol of his country's growth, 

 for it is too slow. For the first hundred years there has been a great 

 similitude. It has taken that long for our country to become what 

 it is, and its fostering care has been reached out to the emigrants of 

 other nations, as the old oak is ever ready to protect and shelter any 

 that come within reach of its branches. But the oak for the next 

 hundred years will keep slowly growing and maturing, while our 

 country rushes along as a mighty torrent; for we stand on the 

 shoulders of past generations, and so are able to see farther than 

 they. The long growth of their knowledge and inventions, gained by 

 their struggles, successes and failures for centuries past, is given to us. 

 We have the benefit of other men's labor, as we have inherited the 

 past tendencies and habits, and the underlying spirit of our lives, 

 and we can not do otherwise than improve, for we are the heirs of 

 past generations, and as old Father Time, in his march onward, touches 

 the aged and gray who stand where the '' brook and the river meet," 

 soon to pass to the other side; and looking over the record of their 

 lives, we find they have slowly but surely grown into eternity. 



Dr. A. G. Humphrey — I feel that I have a "crow to pick " with 

 the ladies. Just as I have a subject matured in my mind, and think 

 I can write on it, along come the ladies and " steal all my thunder." 



C. N. Dennis — I wish to call the attention of the ladies of 

 Elmwood to these papers. A year ago, we held a meeting of this 

 society at Hamilton, and assigned the ladies the work of decorating 

 the hall. They therefore organized the '' Montebello Floral Society," 

 and went to work systematically. Those who were present at that 

 meeting know how well they succeeded. I hope the ladies of Elm- 

 wood will organize a society of this kind in connection with the Hor- 

 ticultural Society. 



