Ethics of Horticulture. 199 



sermon of love to the one, the other passes it by unheeded. 

 The difference is in the individual, the object is the same. 

 Wards worth says: 



" Who has no inward beauty none perceives, 

 'Though all around is beautifuL" 



And Coleridge says : 



" We receive but what we give, 



And in our lives alone does natue live." 



Hence the profession and study of horticulture would 

 seem to the casual observer to be one unending round of 

 delightful and pleasant duties. The horticulturist lives close 

 to nature's great heart, and to him she confides her inmost 

 secrets; to him she discloses the wonderful problem of assimi- 

 lation and growth. Through the propagation of her fruits 

 and flowers she reveals to him the laws which govern the 

 material world. Sbe is his hand-maiden, and by her aid 

 he watches the scale of gradation from the lowest form of 

 organism to man. Her book is open to him, and on its 

 pages he reads laws that are not changed in higher forms of 

 life. He knows that what some are pleased to call sports, 

 in the vegetable world, are simply the results of higher 

 causes little understood ; that nature never makes mistakes, 

 takes freaks, nor produces " sports." 



Yet with all the fascinations of the study and work con- 

 nected with the profession of horticulture, the high road to 

 success is far from being a smooth one. The horticulturist is 

 constantly called upon to deal with new factors ; new ave- 

 nues of exchange are being opened. 



Propagation and cross-fertilization constantly produce 

 new varieties which must be carefully tested and the good 

 culled out from the worthless. Climatic changes have to be 

 met which require new methods of adaptation. The pres- 

 ent era of sharp competition is doing much to change the 

 relation of the horticulturist to his profession, and to be able 

 to acquire any degree of pecuinary succ(;ss he must be fully 

 alive to seek out and adopt every agency for the enlarge- 

 ment of his knowledge of the facts surrounding him and 



