Horticulture on the Farm. 25 



for all the morality, and honesty was put in the female part of 

 man's creation. 



If there is anything in me that is good; if I have ever had any 

 noble promptings, any ambition to be useful to my fellows, the first 

 great cause and source of it all, I attribute to a mother's early 

 training. These little recollections of her, and her manner of 

 training me, teach me how to be patient, and how to lead my little 

 ones along; teach me as I could not otherwise have been taught, how 

 to give them their early education. My early recollections of home 

 were the most pleasant. Here was the large farm well tilled, the 

 convenient and well arranged house and out-buildings, the ample 

 orchards of both early and late fruits. The peach, plum, cherry 

 and pear orchards, with quite a variety of each. The long rows of 

 currants, gooseberries, the kitchen garden, the early potato and 

 sweet corn patch, the rhubarb, horseradish and asparagus patches, 

 the great large door yard with so many flowers and such a variety 

 of trees and shrubs, the beautiful fountain, the arbors and the 

 gravel walks. 1 helped to make many of these. I grafted many 

 of the fruit trees. I budded mother's roses and her orange and 

 lemon trees. I did more than any other, beside father, to help her 

 make that dear old home attractive out of doors. In the language 

 of Holmes: 



"There are no times like the old times, 

 May they never be forgot; 



There is do place like the old place, 

 Keep green the dear old spot," 



But why all this? I tell it because I cannot otherwise so well 

 impress the fact, that home training, home lessons, are the lessons 

 that determine the tastes; and that, whatever we desire most in the 

 man or woman, must be begotten or instilled in early youth. As 

 it is these little home surroundings, the training of our childhood 

 that creates the taste, it is for this I make the personal reference 

 to myself. I have seen many more elaborate and better arranged 

 gardens, lawns and pleasure grounds, than in my old home, but 

 none so interesting to me. Better that, with its imperfections, or 

 any other with it, than a home with no horticultural improvements. 

 We all know what sort of an opinion we have of the home that has 

 none of these surroundings. The passer by remarks, "That man 

 has no taste." " I wonder what kind of a wife he has." " Where 



