Addresses — Local Societies. 261 



looked? What source of interest neglected or forgotten? Let me 

 answer — " All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy." The 

 faithful men who wielded the destinies of the society, with all their 

 versatility of talent, did nothing but solid " work." They never 

 dreamed that any form of recreation could possibly enter the pro- 

 ceedings of so grave and dignified a body as that of the Brown County 

 Horticultural Society, or that life and animation could flow into its 

 membership from any such quarter. They were not at any period 

 of the decline conscious of abated interest in the objects of the 

 society, and could not tell why there existed not the same zeal, the 

 same enthusiasm, the same prompt and unremitted attendance upon 

 the meetings as at first. But the fact was before them. Jack had 

 grown dull, unconsciously, it is true, yet there he stood, staring 

 them in the face, an unmistakably dull boy — dull but not dead. 

 And then they held grave council to devise some means of re-ani- 

 mating dull Jack, some process, magical or otherwise, of infusing 

 new life into him. Wisdom presided in that council and inspired 

 its deliberations; therefore was its purpose accomplished. 



And now without further allegory, let me tell you how the society 

 was brought into its present state of animation and prosperity. The 

 president succeeded, by personal solicitation, in getting a goodly 

 number of the members to meet at his house in the spring of 1877, 

 when, among other things done, a resolution was adopted to hold 

 the meetings during the summer season, on the premises of such 

 farmers in the county as should be willing to furnish out-door ac- 

 commodations; to connect with the same a basket or pic-nic dinner; 

 and to take wives and children to the meetings. This was the 

 " play" they first put in with the " work," and it at once proved a 

 marvelously powerful revivalist. Under the inspiration of this new 

 force, the regular business of the society was transacted and its 

 objects carried forward with greater zeal, energy and efficiency 

 than ever before. Good results followed immediately, better, in- 

 deed, than the most sanguine of us had anticipated; among which 

 was, that by the time fall harvests had been gathered in, the society 

 had also harvested a large addition to its membership, and that, 

 too, from the very class of people to benefit whom was its primary 

 and paramount object — the farmers themselves. 



Other fortunate results followed in due course sooner or later, as 

 it took longer or shorter time to develop them. Interest in the 



