Mental and Moral Influence op Hokticulture. 29 



growing, of setting out trees and shrubbery, of making and caring 

 for the lawQ about the house, is one of the best help*, and one of 

 the most certain as well as one of the cheapest methods within 

 the reach of the masses of our people, to so educate the rising 

 generation as to make them a great improvement upon the most 

 of their predecessors. I can show jou many a home where, 

 judging from the outward surroundings, I would not blame the 

 boys for leaving, or find fault with the girls if they did say they 

 would never marry farmers. Such homes are not what they 

 should be; not what their owners might make them ; not what we 

 will hope they will be at some time in the not very distant future. 

 It seems to me that there is no spot upon this wide earth better 

 adapted by nature to produce fine specimens of man and woman- 

 hood than a farm where horticulture is made a part of the busi- 

 ness, and is attended to as regularly and as persistently as the 

 good farmer cares for his fields, and his flocks and herds. The 

 family of children thus trained can scarcely fail to have happy 

 homes. The young man upon such a farm, as he invites his 

 young friends to enjoy the evening and a dish of strawberries and 

 cream at his home, feels the more a man that he has helped to 

 grow that fruit. If he wishes to call upon a lady friend, the 

 beautiful bouquet gathered from the plants he has helped to tend 

 is more valuable to him than if purchased from a neighboring 

 florist. The beautiful flowers that help to make brigiit and at- 

 tractive the village church are the more enjoyed thit his care 

 has helped to provide them. lie knows where to find the beauti- 

 ful evergreens to make bright and joyous the Christmas time, and 

 he will enjoy these festive occasions much more for the part he 

 has taken in providing for their adornment. He will enjoy the 

 fruit trees and the shrubbery all the more because he assisted in 

 caring for them. The lawn is to him the more beautiful because 

 he has dressed and cared for it. Perhaps the shade trees were set 

 before he was born, but he has assisted his father to trim them, 

 and thus added to their beauty as well as his own interest in 

 them. He has studied books and journals which have given him 

 a large amount of information not only upon horticultural sub- 

 jects, but upon many oLher branches of knowledge that will be 



