How TO Teach Horticulture. 167 



nection with this work; and to this class of people the soci- 

 ety comes with its work, and a noble work it does in adding 

 to the general information to be obtained. 



The sug2:estions I have already made indicate the ways 

 in which we ought to work to educate people with reference 

 to matters of horticulture. You can have a meeting in any 

 neighborhood and discuss questions with reference to horti- 

 culture, and the information there obtained and the interest 

 there awakened will spread throughout the neighborhood 

 and be of value for all time; and the greater number of 

 these meetings we have the more we can help each other in 

 this work, and the better we will be off. I want to see this 

 society work increase. I do not want the men who have 

 been shouldering and bearing these burdens to give way 

 under them. I want to assist them to spread those burdens 

 over more shoulders, and above all, because I want more 

 men in the field ^as active horticulturists. We have a way 

 of teaching horticulture now that we did not have a few 

 years ago, and that is, through the horticultural press. Now, 

 why study horticulture? I have answered the question al- 

 ready. It adds to the measure of enjoyment in this world of 

 ours. A man may sow a field of wheat; he sows it, reaps 

 it and sells it, and what does he gain more than the money 

 value of the crop? There is nothing which stays upon his 

 field. But let him plant a tree and it remains there to beau- 

 tify the landscape, and while he may reap a harvest from 

 year to year, at the same time he is permanently fitting up 

 and beautifying his home. 



That is one reason why horticulture is one step higher 

 than agriculture — agriculture in its narrowest sense. Hor- 

 ticulture applies to the child, to the middle-aged man, and to 

 the man that is in his decline. There is nothing which can 

 give him so much enjoyment as the careful watching the 

 growth of tree, flower and plant, and the study of those 

 beautiful things God has made to embellish this world, the 

 study of which elevates the character, beautifies the life and 

 fits man for a beautiful abode beyond. 



