Reports of Local Societies. 317 



Mrs. Julia E. Lawrence, wife of^C. J. Lawrence, of the town of 

 Howard, as honorary member. 



The preliminary business being transacted, the society proceeded 

 to the principal work of the day, as arranged at the last meeting, 

 namely, the reading of volunteer papers relating to the general 

 subject of horticulture, the particular topic of each paper to be 

 chosen by the writer. 



REPORT OF A SUMMER MEETING OF BROWN COUNTY 

 HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



The following were presented and read, each being followed by 

 familiar discussions of the topics therein considered, to wit: 



HORTICULTURAL vs. FARMING. 



THOMAS BENNETT. 



It is impossible to separate the one from the other any more than 

 it is to say when a colt becomes a horse; the one grows into the 

 other; but just where the one ceases, and the other begins, is un- 

 certain. Perhaps the Holy Writ may aid us some in the solution. 

 God placed our first parents in the Garden of Eden, where was 

 fruit beautiful to look upon and tempting to the sense; also, there 

 was the tree of Knowledge. For his disobedience he was driven out, 

 to subdue the earth, where the thorn and the thistle, together with 

 all other noxious weeds, were to be conquered by man in his strug- 

 gle for food to sustain life. Although the Garden was lost to him, 

 the tree of Knowledge was left him. But as we glance back over 

 the many centuries that man has labored, we marvel at the little 

 progress he has made. When we consider the field is the world 

 and all its life, both animal and vegetable, we are admonisRed that 

 our forefathers, as well as ourselves, have gathered but little 

 fruit from the tree of Knowledge. There was another tree in the 

 Garden of Eden, the tree of Life; and they seem to be cultivated 

 together. For where nations have accepted God's word (which to 

 fallen man is the way to the tree of Life), the tree of Knowledge 

 has yielded the most and best fruit. Where Christian civiliza- 

 tion has been the most thoroughly developed, there has knowledge 

 become the most universal. The earliest Horticultural Society that 



