• iNDiAlSrA HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 393 



homes all formality is cast aside and we are all free to think and do as 

 we deem prudent, and each meeting will place us upon a higher plane of 

 sociability. Each noble thought and deed will react in our own lives and 

 malie them better. The literai-y culture received by our younger members 

 and many of our older ones, is of great benefit. We say older, in years 

 but not in spirit, as progression is characteristic only of those who are 

 possessed of this endowment. Hence all should be young. This phase of 

 culture is recognized in all professions as being a prime essential, and 

 who will deny the fact that horticulture is a profession and ranks on an 

 equality with others? The papers read, the varied discussions given, and 

 the talks rendered will be the means of arousing a love for the cause of 

 horticulture and agriculture in the hearts and minds of the young, and 

 volunteers will not be lacking for the cause, and without a love for the 

 occupation success will not be achieved. Our great poet, Longfellow, has 

 ti-uly said that "the heart giveth grace unto every act." Literary culture 

 is also necessary to poise our lives and character, and without it we be- 

 come mental dwarfs. We must be balanced in the moral, mental and 

 physical, for without this culture we fail to justly and rightly perform the 

 duties and functions assigned us by our Creator. 



In the third place, the training that we receive in this literary work is 

 educational in its nature. We assemble in those homes not only to culti- 

 vate sociability, satisfy the physical appetite and listen to others, but also 

 to reason together. To grapple with the complex problems which arise, 

 to consider the proper solution of those problems and acquire power to 

 master them. Education does not consist only in storing the mind with 

 facts, but the assimilation of these in our own lives. Assimilation of facts 

 comes largely from discussion and interchange of ideas. Facts must be 

 revolved in the mind; they must be considered from all sides, and must be 

 enlarged and expanded; relations must be discovered and traced. The 

 farm, the garden and the orchard all form laboratories for the most pro- 

 found mind and logical investigator. Nature with all its wonders, its 

 beauty and grandeur, unfolds itself to the student. Our scientists con- 

 struct laboratories in art, in medicine, in chemistry and in physics, but 

 these are only side shows to the great panorama that is portrayed in 

 mighty splendor in the farm, garden and orchard. These subjects are 

 treated in general by those who have a knowledge of the same, and by 

 this an education can be acquired that is second only to that received in 

 our regular agricultural schools and colleges. In this way an education 

 will be gained that will give us power to reason, investigate and con- 

 struct. Systematic development is an absolute necessity in any profession. 

 The mind must be trained along the lines of right, clear and logical 

 thinking. The world has ceased to place the greater stress upon muscular 

 development, and now recognizes the development of mental power as 

 paramount to all others. In our local societies the work is performed^ in a 

 general way, along those lines just indicated. 



