20 TRANSACTIONS OF THE ILLINOIS 



Thomas Jefferson — one of the greatest and certainly the most influen- 

 tial in his own and subsequent generations of American statesmen, 

 whose declaration of the absolute equality of man hung on the horizon 

 of the slave power's hopes like the "mene tekel upharsin" on the wall 

 of the feasting Belshazzar, and won the battles of the second as well as 

 the first revolution — kept a record through the eight years of his presi- 

 dency of the first appearance and the disappearance of the various 

 vegetables in the Washington markets, and spent his rural hours at 

 Monticello in gardening. Our veteran poet, Bryant — it seems to run in 

 the family — delights in tree planting, and wrote the poem, "The Plant- 

 ing of the Apple Tree." Henry Ward Beecher I respect rather more 

 as a horticulturist than a theologian. Hawthorne, Emerson, Lowell, 

 Mitchell, and many others, living and dead, of our eminent men, have 

 a warm side towards Horticulture. 



"Thus," says Alcott in his Tablets, "we associate gardens and 

 orchards with the perfect condition of mankind. Gardeners ourselves by 

 birthright, we also mythologize and plant our Edens in the east of us like 

 our ancestors — the sacredness of earth and heaven still clinging to the 

 tiller of the ground. Him we esteem the pattern man, the most favored 

 of any. His labors have a charming innocency. They yield the gains of 

 self-respect denied to other callings. His is an occupation friendly to 

 every virtue: the freest of any from covetousness and debasing cares. 

 It is full of honest profits, manly labors, and brings and administers all 

 necessaries, gives the largest leisure for study and recreation, while it 

 answers most tenderly the hospitalities of friendship and the claims of 

 home. The delight of children, the pastime of woman, the privilege of 

 the poor man, as it is the ornament of the gentleman, the piaise of the 

 scholar, the security of the citizen ; it places man in his truest relations 

 to the world in which he lives. And he who is insensible to these 

 pleasures must lack some chord in the harp of humanity, worshiping, 

 if he worship, at some strange shrine." 



"Rooms Illinois State Agricultural Society, 



Wednesday, <^th Januai-y, 1870. 



"The Board being in session, the Secretary presented a communication 

 from the Secretary of the State Horticultural Society, and embodying 

 resolutions of the latter proposing to join the next State Fair on certain 

 conditions therein stated, which, on motion of Mr. McConnell, were 

 referred to a committee of three, who were instructed to report as soon 

 as convenient. 



The President appointed Messrs. McConnell, Cobb, and Emery such 

 committee. 



The committee appointed to consider and report upon the proposition 

 of the State Horticultural Society, in regard to the next Fair, reported 

 through their Chairman, Mr. Cobb, as follows : 



Your committee, to whom was referred the communication and 

 resolutions of the State Horticultural Society, would respectfully report 

 as follows \ 



