STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 91 



The individual man, standing alone, felt his weakness; so men 

 associated themselves together for mutual protection, and were thus 

 enabled to construct for themselves convenient clothing and comfortable 

 dwellings, and to store up in advance of immediate needs abundant and 

 wholesome food. They cultivated the fertile fields, built cities, and 

 founded great states and empires. 



The early works of art were not beautiful, but massive and strong, 

 and evidently designed more for protection than for ornament. 



The beautiful landscape spread out by the hand of nature, the shady 

 grove where he sheltered himself from the scorching sun, the mountain 

 scenery and the gentle hill-side, the lovely valley, along which murmured 

 the crystal stream, the little cascade or the thundering cataract, did not 

 please a cultured taste or charm the eye of the infant man, but aroused 

 in his sluggish mind sentiments of awe, of wonder, and, perhaps, of crude 

 worship. 



But these influences were potent agencies in gradually awakening 

 him from a state of darkness and barbarism to a condition of civilization 

 and refinement. The laws of society were so established as to obtain a 

 common security. "The name of justice and equity was recognized and 

 revered by all. Every man, assured of enjoying in peace the fruits of his 

 toil, exerted all the latent energies of his soul ; and industry, excited and 

 maintained by the reality or the hope of enjoyment, developed all the 

 treasures of nature and of art ; the fields were covered with harvests, the 

 valleys with flocks, the hills with choice fruits, the sea with vessels, and 

 man was rendered happy in his rich possessions and powerful upon the 

 face of the earth." 



The forest landscape, by its grandeur, first attracted man's attention. 

 Indeed, no species of landscape is so fitted for meditation. Dark, indeed, 

 must have been the mind of the early traveler as he passed through the 

 copses, dells and thickets of the varied forest, if it did not arouse in him 

 an appreciation of the beautiful. 



In the pristine ages of the world the groves were the only temples in 

 which the Deity was worshiped, and to this templuin nemorale one of the 

 earliest forms of the artificial temple seems to have been indebted. It is 

 believed that the Gothic arch of the cathedral churches was an imitation 

 of the natural groves. It arises from a lofty stem, or from two or three 

 stems, if they are slender, which, being bound together, and spreading in 

 every direction, cover the whole with their ramifications. In the close 

 recesses of the beechen groves we find this idea the most complete. The 

 clustered pillars, whose parts, spreading without violence, diverge grad- 

 ually to form the fretted roof, find there, perhaps, their earliest archetype. 



The ancients held the groves sacred to Jupiter, and divine honors 

 were paid to the oak by our Celtic ancestors. And the Druids offered 

 sacrifices beneath its shades. The Romans crowned their heroes with 

 green oak leaves, entitled to civic crowns. In these Christian times, it 

 is a common expression, "The groves were God's first temples." 



With the development of taste, and an ability to appreciate the 

 beautiful in natural scenery, man was led to put forth his hand in imita- 



