STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 29 



Vf.gktabi.f Gardens should receive more attention than is given 

 to them bv our people generally, and it is hoped that one result of the 

 present low prices of farm products may be to induce them to begin at 

 once the planting and proper care of good kitchen gardens. 



Fi.owER Gardens. — Very gradually an increase is noticed in the 

 number of families cultivating flowers, and the lovers of these beauties are 

 encouraged to patiently labor and wait, in the good cause. 



Timber Planting. — The great necessity of planting trees for tim- 

 ber, on a scale commensurate with the present and prospective needs of 

 our people, is making no little progress ; yet we need an army of apostles, 

 with the zeal and energy of Peter and Paul to preach and exhort the 

 people to go forward in this crusade against the chilly blasts of winter, 

 and to avert the terrors of the timber-famine [and consecjuent famine of 

 cereals. — £(/.] which is so certainly and rapidly approaching. 



During the past season it was my fortune to traverse, for the first 

 time the treeless region from Plattsmouth to Kearney Junction, Nebras- 

 ka, enabling me to realize more fully than ever before the immense and 

 increasing demand upon the timber resources of the country to open 

 and keep up the improvements being made almost simultaneously over 

 the wide extent of territory that constitutes what was the mythical " Great 

 American Desert " of our boyhood. 



Although we might express in figures the requisite number of plants 

 which should be set to supply this great need, yet it is difficult for the 

 human mind to comprehend the vastness of the enterprise. 



We need a score of establishments like that of Douglas and Sons, 

 in constant operation to the full extent of their capacity. 



It is my painful duty to record the departure of our esteemed Put- 

 nam County correspondent Isaac W. Stewart of Florid, in January last. 

 While operating a buzz saw a splinter from the wood struck his head, 

 fracturing his skull. He lingered for three days, before passing to the 

 reward awaiting him in the l.md where there is no more sorrow, sickness, 

 or pain. It is no mere empty formality to rc< ord of liim that he was a 

 zealous, intelligent laborer in our great work of making the wilderness 

 bud and blossom as the rose; those who knew him best, loved and es- 

 teemed him most. 



The great loss to his wife and children can only be made up by. 

 Him who has promised to be "the widow's God and a F'ather to the 

 fatherless." 



To those of you whcj knew my own faithful companion of thirty 

 years, 1 can say nothing to add to your knowledge of my one great loss 

 in her removal to the better land since last we met. Whatever of use- 

 fulness it may have been mine to accomplish is as much the result of her 

 labors as my own. In this greatest of trials that can befall man, I am 

 comforted by the great truths that "my loss is her gain," and that the 

 Infinite One " doeth all things well." 



