Discussion. 179 



B. F. Adams — It is very seldom that I address a public as- 

 sembly, but I have listened to Mr. Garfield with the same in- 

 terest that many of you have manifested. There was one 

 point in the address that I was very much interested in. It 

 is this: He speaks of the impressions we can make upon 

 young minds. We have some testimony on record corrobo- 

 rating the statement he made, and it was left on record by 

 one whose name is as familiar as household words to the 

 people of this country. I allude to the late Marshall P. 

 Wilder, president of the American Pomological Society. 

 Speaking of his early training in horticulture in a public 

 speech on the occasion of his eighty-eighth birth day, to a 

 gathering of men assembled in his honor to pay their re- 

 spects to him at that time, he said: "Since my sainted 

 mother took me into a garden to help hedge and keep it in. 

 order, there is no occupation or pursuit in ■^hich I have 

 taken so much pleasure as in cultivating the garden." This 

 he said at the age of eighty-eight years. We can see then 

 the influence exerted by our early impressions. They creep 

 out in boyhood and they appear in manhood and they are 

 ever present when the frosts of age have whitened the head. 



Pres. J. M. Smith — We l^ve some delegates from Iowa 

 whom we should be glad to hear from. Mr. Patten, we 

 should like to hear from you. 



Mr. Patten — I have been interested in the remarks that 

 have been made upon the paper that was read by Mr. Gar- 

 field, and ^especially in the suggestion of the gentleman 

 that was last upon the floor about the influence of our 

 mothers upon us in this work of horticulture. I believe 

 that I owe a debt of gratitude to my mother for the little 

 taste I have in horticulture. I remember that when I was 

 a child she was always gathering beautiful plants and 

 flowers and that my father seemed to care very little about 

 them other than in a general way. I remember her plant- 

 ing a little pear slip that a lady gave her, and for all I know 

 the result of that planting stands to-day about ten miles 

 north of Madison. At least twenty years after the planting 

 it remained there as perfect as any of the forest trees around 

 it. But not to be personal in this matter I would say that 



