STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 19 



most sacred trusts, barter their honor, virtue — nay, their very soul, for 

 gold, and thus bring sorrow and anguish of heart upon us at home, and 

 deep disgrace upon our nation abroad ? 



The demand of the age is for men — honest, earnest, cultured men. 

 Men who regard not fear nor favor, who can neither be cajoled nor 

 bought ; but who, alike beneath the meridian glow of the sunshine of 

 prosperity, or amid the howling storms of adversity, will stand for the right. 

 Nowhere are they more imperatively needed, and nowhere can they be 

 as well prepared for their life-work as in the department of rural life. 



As in every village churchyard there lies 



" Hands that the rod of empire might have swayed, 

 ( )r waked to ecstasy the livinsr lyre," 



So there may be found in every rural community, guiding the plow or 

 gathering the grain, pruning the orchard or training the vine, men of sin- 

 gular capacity, great capability and sterling honesty, who only need to 

 be properly trained and brought to the front, to stir the nation with their 

 noble deeds and burning words. 



But the question arises. How can we train up such a class of men and 

 fit them for the work that will be required of them ? 



"As the twig is bent the tree inclines." " The child is fiither of the 

 man." The mother must lay the foundation, and upon it he will build. 

 But we are told that the rural mothers of the present day are not equal 

 to the task of training up a class of men who are to sway the destinies of 

 the nation. Until the present decade this was true. Heretofore the 

 farmer's wife has been a complete drudge. She has worked and waited 

 and hoped, with unutterable longing, for that higher and nobler social 

 and intellectual life for which she is so eminently fitted, but which it 

 seemed impossible for her ever to reach. But the agricultural and horti- 

 cultural press, and the various rural organizations sustained by the uprising 

 of the rural classes, has opened to her the gate of hope, and lifted her 

 above her little round of household duties, and shown her that for her 

 own and her children's sake she must reach out and grasp that higher 

 social life, and that her children must be taught a new doctrine — 

 that science and art, that beauty and intelligence no longer belong to 

 the cities alone, but are hereafter to be inseparably connected with 

 rural life. 



The future worker on the farm is to walk with open eyes among the 

 golden grain, beneath the spreading tree, and to accept with joy and 

 thanksgiving the treasures that Pomona and Flora lay at his feet. To 

 teach the child to read aright these lessons of nature, and to guide it ten- 

 derly and lovingly in the right way, is the mission of the rural mothers of 

 the land. 



To the young men and maidens who are soon to take our places, we 

 would also offer a word of advice. God, in His providence, has given you 

 a "goodly heritage," and cast your lot in a favorable period in the 

 world's history ; and those who fit themselves for life's higher and more 

 responsible duties will surely be called upon to perform them. The 



