246 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



OUR STATE SOCIETIES. 



If many of us were to go back to the homes of our childhood, we- 

 would find that the once familiar paths in the wildwood have been 

 changed, and in their stead are the carefully cultivated grain fields of 

 to-day. The lanes also are changed to section lines, graded and grav- 

 eled. The old wooden bridges are replaced by the new steel structures 

 of modern design, and changes in every sphere of life have been going 

 on since we took our departure, ten, twenty, thirty or forty years ago. 

 This is no less true than that we have changed our plans of producing 

 wealth, our modes of investigating subjects and our ideas of what 

 constitutes happiness. We are to reach for greater results in the same 

 length of time than our fathers did. We live in a wiser age, our occu- 

 pations are more diversified, and we have more speedy methods of 

 reaching the objects of our ambition. 



iSTor is it possible, nor we longer wish to use the slow methods of 

 the past, in which each man experiments for himself, reaching the sam& 

 conclusions and demonstrating the same facts over and over again 

 that have long been reached and demonstrated and given to guide meu^ 

 or misguide them. Happy is the man that catches the spirit of this 

 new development of things, and profits by the experience of others, 

 and places his shoulder to the already rolling wheel and moves on 

 with the age. 



One of the most striking features of change from the slow plans- 

 of the past to the present rapid advancement among the people is our 

 State associations. It certainly does not take much consideration 

 upon the part of any thinking man or woman to see the advantages 

 growing out of associating with the experienced and intelligent in the 

 same calling in which you yourselves are engaged. So man ever yet 

 rubbed up against a fellow-craftsman that did not have a chance to learn 

 something of success or failure in the common occupation of both. 

 These associations make it now possible for men of inquiring and 

 teachable minds to become wiser and more practical, ahd more con- 

 servative and more thoughtful and more cultured, and consequently 

 more useful, in a shorter length of time than in days gone by. Practi- 

 cal knowledge is made such by experience, and it is the experience of 

 others that we all want to profit by, so as to be able to sift the wheat 

 from the chaft', and not be seeking "grapes among thorns and figs 

 among thistles." 



The two faculties of man blessed above all others are the faculties 

 to learn and then to teach. These State associations are especially 

 meant to assist us along this line. 



