TRANSACTIONS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY OF NORTHERN ILL. 225 



Many of the small plants may, with little care, be produced in the 

 greatest abundance in every fruit garden. The ordinary attention given 

 to farm crops by the careful, industrious husbandman is all that is required 

 to provide in abundance their rich luxuries during the entire season. 



The first centennial year of our national existence has been one as 

 long to be remembered as the one that gave it birth. 



Strife and dissentions have aroused and fired our political horizon, 

 partisan spirit has raged to an alarming extent, and the clouds are still 

 ominous ; the end is not yet. The promised seed time and harvest, cold 

 and heat, summer and winter, have been continued, and the dry and 

 parched earth, which had became alarmingly so, has been drenched by 

 copious rainfalls, and the seven years' drouth appears at least to have 

 been checked, and new life and vigor have been given to vegetable growth. 

 Our orchards and vineyards, threatened with ruin, have assumed their 

 natural vigor, produced a bountiful harvest, and promise well for the fu- 

 ture. Our springs and streams, which had almost ceased to exist, have 

 assumed their original proportions, and the cattle on our broad prairies 

 " lie down in green pastures" and beside the flowing brooklet. Wood 

 land and meadow in rich luxuriance add to the increased beauty of the 

 landscape, and the happiness and contentment of man. 



I have observed for several years the increased production of small 

 fruits in the vicinity of our towns and villages, and that the demand keeps 

 pace therewith ; that our people are indulging in an increased consump- 

 tion of these rich, health-producing luxuries, until they are becoming an 

 indispensable article of diet in their season in every well regulated family. 

 Xot only the children, but the older people., watch with satisfaction the 

 ripening of the early fruits, and lament when the later ones no longer 

 supply their places on our tables at each returning repast. 



In the vicinity of our larger towns and villages the small fruits are 

 being grown in abundance; while among our farmers, with their handsome, 

 well tilled acres, you seldom find a well cultivated fruit garden, and too 

 often only a half cultivated vegetable garden. The little labor required 

 in its season necessary to add so many luxuries and comforts to our tables 

 is deferred. In the spring time farm crops demand first attention, and 

 the labor is all employed to secure, as early as possible, the seeding and 

 planting of corn and wheat, forgetting that the early garden is as essen- 

 tial and important to the comfort and well-being of the family as the 

 more substantial field crops; and, if the garden is made at all, too often 

 the wife and daughter must leave the household duties, or take the few 

 leisure moments they may find, to superintend, if not actually perform, 

 the labor of planting the kitchen garden, and to them is often due the 

 credit of the early vegetables that grace the table in early summer. 



A small plat of ground set aside for the growing of small fruits, and 

 the labor of a man a day or two in the season to plant and cultivate, will 

 repay a hundred-fold in the luxuries of the family economy. 



It is through the influence of our Horticultural Society that the edu- 

 cation of the people must be established, and the lessons we learn from 

 our experiences and experiments will aid them in selecting the methods 



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