270 BOARD OF AGKICTJLTURE. 



experiment. These little trees are there, and they are living, and I pre- 

 sume they will continue to live one hundred years, probably; and if my 

 children's children's children should cut off those Austraiu pines and give 

 the blacli ash a fair show, they might have blacli ash there as the suc- 

 cessor to the Austrain pines. Nature is a wonderful recuperator on the 

 earth's surface; the trouble is, man fights against her so strongly that 

 she does not have a fair chance. They have some fine fruit, or would have 

 it, but they will kill the birds that kill the bugs that eat it up. Nature is 

 all right; man is at fault. Man fights nature, that is where the trouble 

 lies; and it is man, after all, that has to come around on God's side, and 

 that is what we are after. 



President Hobbs: If there is nothing further, we will take up the 

 next subject, "Education for the Home Maker," by Mrs. Virginia C. 

 Meredith, professor of home economics at the University of Minnesota. 

 Mrs. Meredith needs no introduction to an Indiana audience further 

 than this. 



Mrs. Meredith: I am very much inclined to go on with Mr. Freeman's 

 speech. There is quite a good deal more that might be said on that 

 subject. There is a saying that where the trees go, men decay. And 

 I believe if we were asked of all the nations— we will just say Europe— 

 which nation is going backward, where man is least progressive, we would 

 probably say on the plains of Italy where the forests have been cut away. 



I just want to say that I know a man, a member of a firm engaged 

 in supplying railroad ties. He said to me less than a month ago, "Our 

 business is growing; we cut over one hundred thousand acres every year 

 for our railroad tie business." Think of that! Isn't it dreadful? Isn't 

 it awful? One hundred thousand acres, and just one firm! Of course, 

 we have to have railroad ties. But that is not the subject assigned to 

 me. I am going to talk to you this evening about the "Education of the 

 Home Maker." 



What is the home, and why should tbe ones who organize the home be 

 educated? Is there such a thing as a special education for the one who 

 makes the home? What is a home? It is one of the most expensive in- 

 stitutions that we have anywhere. We have been hearing figures about 

 all sorts of institutions and people complaining of taxes paid for the sup- 

 port of the government, local, mimicipal, and State, and all that sort of 

 thing; but there is nothing, no institution so expensive as the home. Of 

 all the dollars earned in the United States today, directly earned, I sup- 

 pose ninety-nine cents of every dollar goes to the support of the homes. 

 That is the end and aim of all the money earned, to support the home, 

 the most expensive institution we have. What is the home? I say it is 

 a place and an opportunity for the right development of the physical and 

 spiritual natures. That is a broad and conclusive definition. If all men 



