222 TRANSACTIONS OF THE ILLINOIS 



" After breakfast, we went over to the Industrial University, which is aijout a mile 

 from the hotel. What could possess the Trustees to locate the building so far out of the 

 way, when they had such a nice location just south of the old college building, and 

 within an easy walk of the depot, is beyond comprehension. A citizen told Sam that it 

 was to please a real estate ring, that the thing was thus. If that is true, these men should 

 be made to move every brick to where the building should have been located. A man 

 told us that for this and other things the Legislature has turned the old Board of Trus- 

 trees out of office, and put a new set in their places, and made other changes in the 

 management, and that now things were in a veiy good condition. The new building is 

 a large, massive, warehouse-sort of structure, more solid than pretty ; and I was disap- 

 pointed in its appearance, for I had been told that it was something very fine. A couple 

 of more feet in height in the basement, and a little more taste in the elevation, would 

 have added very much to its appearance ; but" it is solid, and looks as though it had 

 been built for all time. And yet it was a bad plan to use dry pressed bricks for such a 

 purpose, as I fear they will begin to crumble as the ages begin, and may in time create 

 a bother. The inside is plain, and, so far as I could see, the rooms do very well ; but 

 I do not pretend to know much about the inside of a college. 



" At lo o'clock, the Horticultural Society were called together. There were about 

 sixty members, and among them only three or four women. There were su few women 

 that I was almost sorry that I had attended. Just to think of sitting for four days among 

 a roomful of men, and less than half-a-dozen of us women ! 



" The first thing was an address of welcome from the head of the Faculty, Dr. Greg- 

 ory. The Doctor is a very pleasant speaker, and made the Society very much at home. 

 He thought we should have warm, nice weather, and our coming brought up the mild 

 zephyrs from the South, and that would insure a pleasant time; and he hoped that we 

 would look through the l^uilding, the library, the classes, and make ourselves at home 

 during our short stay. The President then read his opening address, when the meeting 

 was ready to proceed to the regular order of business. 



" It may be that all the arrangements of the Society are well enough ; but it appeays 

 to me to be too exclusively in the hands of the men — ^just as though our sex have no 

 taste for, or right to, the garden, the small fruits, or the flower garden ; for all of these 

 are embraced in Horticulture. I looked over the programme, and could not find the 

 name of a single woman on the list who was to take part in the proceedings ; and, dur- 

 ing the whole of the three days' session, not one of us females was invited to say a word 

 or take any part in the proceedings. I expected better things of the Society than this, 

 and especially of its venerable President ; but it is possible that age in all cases does not 

 bring wisdom. At least it appears to me that it would show a little wisdom in this So- 

 ciety to invite the ladies to take a part in it. Not that I would like to make a speech, 

 or write an essay, but there are others that could do so. 



" The first day was spent mainly in reports and the reading of essays ; and in the 

 evening we had a paper on Forest Tree Planting, that got up some pretly sharp debate. 

 It appears that, for the past twenty years, there is a party who have been predicting that 

 in ten years all the timber on the American continent would be used up, and that it 

 would 'become barren like Palestine ' and a country called Sarah, or Sahary, where the 

 old settlers cut down all the old forests for building and for fuel, and in consequence 

 people had to move west in order to get timber for farming pui-poses ; and now the 



