STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 125 



As a nation, we had the experience of an ordinary century between 

 1861 and 1866 ; as individuals, we seemed to have had the experience of 

 half a lifetime in our growth in sentiment and in thought. I wish I could 

 add that we had continued to grow, and that the nation's hour of the 

 highest endeavor had not been desecrated, and the springs of its patriot- 

 ism polluted, by the self-seeking of special privilege and the farther viola- 

 tion of the great common law of equal and exact justice I 



In selecting a proper topic for this occasion, the centennial year of 

 our nation's history inevitably suggests a historical examination of the 

 progress of the art which this Society was organized to advance, and 

 accordingly I shall ask you to listen to 



A SKETCH OF OUR ILLINOIS HORTICULTURE. 



Father Marquette, who, in 1673, descended the Wisconsin and Mis- 

 sissippi rivers, commends the horticultural pursuits even of our aboriginal 

 population. "They also sow beans and melons, which are excellent, 

 especially those with a red seed. Their squashes are not of the best. 

 They dry them in the sun, to eat in winter and spring." Father Allonez, 

 in 1676, affirms that " they eat fourteen kinds of roots which they find in 

 the prairies. * * They gather on trees or plants fruits of forty-two 

 different kinds, which are excellent ;" but he does not tell us of any culti- 

 vation of these abundant products, and beyond these incidental notices 

 we have no trace of what was done by the intelligent tribes that peopled 

 our prairies. 



FRENCH HORTICULTURE. 



The French settlers, who are traditionally placed at Kaskaskia and 

 Cahokia, about 1683 or 16S5, like other pioneer populations, spent their 

 time in hunting, fishing and other half savage pursuits, rather than in the 

 culture of the earth. It is notable, however, that they appear in the early 

 day to have given more attention to horticulture than the American set- 

 tlers of a hundred years ago. Proofs of this are seen in the venerable 

 pear trees of enormous size that still survive on the sites of the old French 

 settlements. A writer, in a former volume of our Transactions, states that 

 about the year 1700 the French about Cahokia commenced planting the 

 seeds of apples and pears brought from France. He does not give his 

 authority, but we may presume it was tradition. Another and earlier 

 ■correspondent and member says that " Monsieur Girardin, a native of 

 France, planted the first pear orchard, of very fine fruit, which he brought 

 from his native country about the year 1780, at his farm near Prairie du 

 Pont, one mile south of Cahokia ; said trees, or some of them, are still 

 healthy and bearing fine fruit every year. Some are as large as three to 

 four feet in diameter." Besides these at this point, we find old pear trees, 

 apparently seventy-five to one hundred years of age, at Cahokia, Kaskas- 

 kia, and near Nameoki station in Madison county. I think it is not im- 

 probable that trees were planted much earlier, but did not endure to a very 

 advanced age, as compared with trees of the same sort in the milder 

 climates of the sea coast. 



