THE HOME BEAUTIFUL 57 



harmony with the multitudinous beneficence that surrounds them, so that 

 they in their personal characters shall reflect that which is beautiful and 

 sweet. If during the formative period of our young people's lives their 

 studies could be pursued amidst surroundings that reflect artistic and 

 esthetic taste, schoolhouse, high school, college and university vying with 

 each other in providing flowers, trees and shrubs in continuous pro- 

 fusion of foliage and bloom, we make bold to say the young life that is 

 favored with such a framing will be very likely to respond in fruitage 

 of the right kind. And if in addition to this their individual home sur- 

 roundings partake of the nature of such a provision, to my mind there 

 has been furnished that which will be almost sure, nay I will not 

 qualify it but say of a certainty there will be an influence that must be 

 of a refining and elevaeting character. The closer we draw the net, the 

 deeper we probe, the more clearly are we led to the conclusion that that 

 which we are in continual touch with leaves an imperishable impression 

 upon individual character. Those of us who can look back and see our 

 own life windings, most readily appreciate the truth of such a conclusion. 



The demand that has arisen during the last decade,, that we return 

 to the country a disciplined mentality and a cultured and refined iperson- 

 ality, is not of urgan growth but reflects the sentiment of those who have 

 been in touch with the vitalizing power that country life affords. True it 

 is and I rejoice in the fact that so many of our masters and past-masters 

 in commercial life are giving splendid aid and assurance of assistance. 

 Our newspaper and men of literary pursuits, together with those in all 

 kinds of professional life, are responding and offering to join hands in the 

 laudable object of sending back to rural life and its pursuits, those of 

 vigorous intellect and strong character who are carrying seed that, when 

 deposited in so responsive a soil as is afforded by our splendid Nebraska 

 prairies, will bear a harvest of immense benefit to our people. Yet I am 

 led to refiect that it is only those who have drank long at the fountain 

 of rural enjoyment who are able to put an approximately correct esti- 

 mate upon the value of such a movement. 



For many years in our country there seemed to exist the idea that 

 life amidst rural pursuits had a tendency to dwarf and wither culture 

 and refinement; still for some reason or another the material that was 

 necessary to keep alive and aggressively vigorous the commercial and 

 professional life of our populous centers, like the food which the congre- 

 gated toilers require, has had to be provided b ythe country. Surely then 

 the soil that can produce has the ability not merely of procreation but of 

 maintaining and bringing to full fruition every element of personal charm 

 of character, and if there is any place in the world that a man can step 

 off with elastic tread into the great beyond it is from the home surrounded 

 by all those beautiful things that nature has so abundantly provided and 

 which the true Horticulturalist is ever in quest of. Oh yes I am compelled 

 to believe and say that the Horticulturist does not confine himself to 

 merely material selection and cultivation, but his very love of natural 



