296 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



No other avocation furnishes more opportunities for mind activity- 

 in immediate connection with its business transactions, than agricul- 

 ture. We have to do and to deal with nature and with nature's laws. To 

 know these laws of nature, these principles which are immutable, is 

 the basis of horticultural and agricultural knowledge. Hence, the 

 farmer is a scientist, in that he knows much of nature's laws. Nature 

 has taught the scientist all he knows. The grand progress of the 

 Nineteenth century is the outcome of accurately determining what the 

 forces of nature are and the proper combination of these forces. The 

 powers of electricity were observed during all the ages of human his- 

 tory. Its force was observed in the crushing violence attendant upon 

 the thunder storm. The idea of using this wonderful force and caus- 

 ing it to become the obedient servant of man, was reserved to the 

 Nineteenth century. In a great measure the same may be said of 

 steam. The inhabitants of earth had witnessed, from time to time,, 

 the force evolved in combining heat with water. The most tremendous 

 exhibition of force the world ever witnessed was that of the volcano. 

 Yet man had never thought to use that force to his own good till a 

 much later age. In agriculture, in horticulture, we have to do and to 

 deal with silent forces, yet forces as potent as the more observable ones^ 

 To know what these silent forces are, to know how to apply them in 

 our business, in such combination as shall bring the best results, be- 

 comes the problem for solution. To the intelligent horticulturist a 

 study of nature and of nature's laws becomes a source of pleasurable 

 mind activity, and a compliance with these laws is the acme of agri- 

 cultural intelligence. 



Notwithstanding the fact that so little attention is given to sys- 

 tematic study of nature and her laws, yet by daily contact with these 

 things the farmer, the farmer's sons and farmer's daughters attain a 

 strength of intellect that is marked and notable. This inherent strength 

 of intellect is evidenced in the marvelous success attained by so 

 many, who have gone up from the humble walks of farm life to shine 

 in the galaxy of greatness. In the very nature of things, the mind de- 

 velopment and character development that come of farm life is such as 

 may be conducive of and lead to a well-proportioned, fully rounded 

 out manhood, and fit one for the highest type of citizenship. More- 

 over, human history points uniformly to the fact that the greatest 

 measure of human happiness is found along these lines. The greatest 

 men of earth — the statesman, the warrior, the financier — have looked 

 wistfully to the peaceful retirement of rural life as the fitting emblem 

 of a restful quiet of declining years. Webster, when old, shrunk from 

 the excitement of forensic eifort found in the halls of Congress, but 



