STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 6 



I have been deputed by my fellow citizens of Jacksonville and 

 the members of the Jacksonville Horticultural Society to extend to 

 you a welcome to our" cit}', with the assurance that we feel highly 

 honored in l)ein^ at this time favored with the annual convocation 

 in our midst of one of the oldest and most useful Horticultural 

 Societies in the United States. Ours is not a city of great manufac- 

 turing or commercial enterprises, but of interests of a higher char- 

 acter and more analagous to your pursuits. Your vocation is culture, 

 so is ours. And if our town has had any eminence in the past, or 

 enjoys any in the ])resent, it is in the line of culture. Yours is the 

 culture of Mother Earth, with her delicious fruits and lovely flowers. 

 Ours is the culture of virgin soil, of tender minds, budding into 

 noble manhood and beautiful womanhood, so that you and we are 

 not widely separated in our vocations or our sympathies. The analo- 

 gies between our vocations are numerous, and will so readily occur 

 to your minds, that I need not mention them now. If asked which 

 is the more important, yours or ours, I should say that they are a 

 .sort of Siamese twins, neither of which could "' get on " very well 

 without the other. This being so, I have no doubt you will feel 

 very much at home, and we will feel that simply '' our own " have 

 come " home again." We, however, shall have the advantage of 

 3'ou, for we shall be the better and happier for your coming among 

 us, because you will leave our homes lovelier and sweeter for your 

 <3oming. We shall be like the lump of claj' of which 



A I'ersiau fable says: One day 



A wanderer found a lump of clay 



80 redolent of sweet perfume, 



Its odors scented all the room. 

 "What art thouV" was the quick demand; 

 "Art thou some gem from the Samarcand, 



Or Spikenard in this rude disguise, 



Or other costly merchandise?" 

 "Nay! I am but a lump of clay." 

 "Then whence tliis wondrous sweetness — say?" 

 '• Friend, if tlie secret I disclose, 



I have been dwelling with tlie rose." 



Thus for a few days entertaining your i)roducers of sweetness 

 iind beauty, we shall retain after your departure some of the fra- 

 grance which you brought with you, but of which you will have no 

 less because we have secured so much. But your tinu^ is })recious, 

 and 1 must not further waste it. 



Again, in the name of the Jacksonville Horticultural Society, 

 and of tlie citizens of Jacksonville, T welcome you to our town, cnir 

 homes, our schools, and to our institutions — institutions which are 

 yours as well as ours, and which have always found among men of 

 your stamp generous and hearty supporters. 



