STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 1 23 



his errors as soon as he is made aware of them, and even courts true crit- 

 icism, while tlie latter never will allow that he is wrong, but having 

 once made a false statement, will never go back on his word. 



You are engaged in a most glorious work, namely, the advancement 

 of the beautiful art and science of Horticulture. You are each of you 

 doing what you can, in the first place to promote the aesthetic influences 

 of your calling so as to elevate and render it attractive to the young who 

 are constantly seeking occupation in the numerous walks of life; and in 

 the second place to make your business more profitable. To further 

 either, or both of these objects, true science — knowledge — must be ap- 

 plied to all your daily operations. 1 say tiue science, because we want 

 none of the bogus article. We must recollect that while man is the 

 interpreter of nature, science is its right interpretation, and that it is the 

 wrong interpretation of Nature's truths that has brought true science into 

 such disrepute among many practical men. We can not each of us 

 become piolicicnt in all departments, and must, to attain the greatest 

 good, confine ourselves in a great measure to specialties. Professor 

 Gould has truly said that "an equal culture in many directions is synony- 

 mous with superficiality in all, and an ' admirable Crichton ' is to-day simply 

 a ridiculous object." 



Science means knowledge, and knowledge means power, and to 

 promote and advance the incipient Science of Horticulture which we 

 are engaged in, we must each of us bring the knowledge gained in our 

 several departments, and ofier it upon one common altar for the common 

 good. The man who receives an apple tree from the nursery, and who 

 plants and cultivates it without knowing anything of the insect enemies 

 that are likely to ruin it, will not stand the same chance of raising fine 

 fruit from that ti'ee, as that man will, who, with the requisite knowledge 

 guards against catastrophe, by first examining the young tree so as to 

 destroy bark-lice, root-lice, or the eggs of caterpillars that may be upon 

 it; who afterwards soaps it carefully, to prevent the borers, and eventually 

 when it comes into bearing, properly surrounds its trunk with rags to 

 entrap the Apple-worm; and the same argument applies to all other 

 kinds of knowledge necessary to the proper cultivation of such a tree. 



"A little fire is quickly trodden out, 



Which, being suffered, rivers can not quench," 



and we must always bear in mind in dealing with insects that it is far 

 easier to prevent than to cure. 



You are no doubt all of you familiar with the quotation from Dean 

 Swift's account of what the King of Brobdignag said to Lemuel Gulli- 

 ver; "and he gave it for his opinion, that whoever could make two ears 

 of corn, or two blades of grass, to grow upon a spot of ground where 

 only one grew before, would deserve better of mankind and do more 

 essential service to his country than the whole race pf politicians put 

 together." 



I take it that we are each of us doing our utmost to carry out King 

 Brobdignug's idea, and in these annual reunions, when by interchange of 



