WARSAW HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 307 



bouquet sent to the sick during life is more beautiful and of greater 

 worth than the mass of flowers heaped upon the casket, prepared by 

 a professional for the mercenary dollar, and paid for only to be men- 

 tioned in the society paper that writes up the funeral. Selfish, in- 

 deed, must be the man or woman who is unwilling to divide the 

 pleasure, the enjoyment of both fruit and flower with others. Sim- 

 plicity is revealed by both leaf and blossom, and among those native 

 and to the manor born may be found some of the hardiest and the 

 best. 



I will admit that it is very esthetical to talk or sing of wander- 

 ing through labyrinthiau walks, beneath towering magnolias, and 

 fanned by the breath of the orange blossoms. But the change is 

 most too sudden for delicate nerves to step out from an imaginary 

 world into a temperature 25 degrees below zero, and be fanned by a 

 Sucker breeze moving across the prairie at a rate of 40 miles per 

 hour. Or to write about babbling brooks, fed by living springs, and 

 leaping down precipices and loitering in pools of imaginary depth, in 

 which the speckled trout play hide and seek, when there is not a 

 mountain in the state or hardly a stream in which the water is pure 

 enough for a trout to live in. Illinois is a great, a noble, a magnifi.- 

 cent state, but not practically adapted to raising oranges or tropical 

 plants in open ground. 



I have written this to provoke criticism and discussion, hoping 

 that from some such discussion may arise more systematic effort. 

 Now that the general government has appropriated a large sum for 

 the establishment of experimental stations in every state, it seems to 

 me to be of the utmost importance that local societies should do 

 more careful, systematic work, and keep a record of the same ; 1,200 

 different kinds of apples are said to have been planted on the Uni- 

 versity grounds at Champaign, but what does the state know of 

 them, or their success, or value. If the governmental experiment is 

 no better, I say away with them, we can do better ourselves if we 

 will but try unitedly and systematically. 



Song by J. A. Hudson, also by choir of Congregational Church, 

 *' Beautiful Songs of Spring." 



Essay by Mrs. A. W. Robinson, " Thorns and Roses." 



Miss Stella Gregg introduced the Misses Hollingsworth, of Iowa, 

 as " our visitors," and suggested further discussion on winter-bloom- 

 ing plants. 



Miss Hollingsworth — From what plants do you get the most 

 winter bloom? 



Mrs. Connable — Geraniums and begonias. 



