JUNE MEETING, 1877. 133 



the earth witli gladness, "makes the desert blossom/' multiplies the endear- 

 ments of home, and watches each sacred care with assiduous devotion. Intoxi- 

 cating drinks, while tiiey destroy tlic mind, bring a corres[)onding decay of 

 home and its surroundings. 



Pomology — alcohol — write them together ! Do they give a like impression 

 to the eye? "Sound tliem !" Do they fall in concord upon the car? The 

 one suggests health and long life and happy firesides, the other poverty, vice, 

 misery, crime, delirium and death. One is honorable and profitable, the otJier is 

 an unmitigated curse infecting the very air with its breath of poison. One is ele- 

 vating in its tendency — its watch-word ever "excelsior," the other is tracked 

 by one decadence after another in its downward course, until it ends in darkness 

 and in horror. 



The one builds, the other destroys. The one is fair and fresh as the "early 

 May," the other is loathsome and rei)ulsive. The one is prized by the good 

 and pure, tlic otlier is the instrument of all evil in the hands of the vicious and 

 the fallen. The one has for its prototype the original garden of obedience and 

 innocence, the other the first gratification of sensual taste resulting in shame 

 and expulsion. The one leads its votaries into halls of wisdom and enjoyment 

 like the present, the other drags them to the poorhouse and the prison. 



Shall we lead jwrnology, this beautiful bride, clothed in purity, garlanded 

 with flowers, on whose brow shines the radiance of morning, and whose roseate 

 fingers scatter blessings on her way — shall we lead her to the altar, to join her 

 bright, apparent destiny with that of the dark demon alcohol? 



Oh, most unholy alliance, let us "forbid the bans." In the name of God 

 and humanity let it be commanded! Do you say, "let us have iiYitt\Q light 

 wine and &v:eet cider? Ah ! there is the incipient evil that steals upon iis una- 

 wares to sow the seeds of coming sorrow, that will surely strike root in the 

 heart-soil, and feed upon the soul's decay. 



Mothers, as you love your children, and would leave them an inheritance of 

 virtue and honor and happiness. Oh, beware of the social glass of wine or cider 

 in the home circle. Let not tlie sacred name of mother be associated in their 

 minds with the recollection of their departure from the straight line of sobriety. 

 Let not your loving hands present to their trusting lips even the semblance of 

 maddening alcohol. 



The wines of commerce contain from six to twenty-five per cent of alcohol. 

 Your domestic wines, by additions of sugar, j? reduce a largo per centage of 

 alcohol. Cider, after the first few hours from the press, is alcoholic in a- 

 greater or less degree. If it has power to arouse the sleeping devil of appetite 

 in the reformed drunkard, can it be proper nourishment for babes? Doctor 

 Reynolds spoke from the truth of bitter experience when he called it the " devil's 

 kindling wood." 



Oh, proud man, strong only in self-opinion, yield to reason rather than 

 temptation, and so find the grandest assertion of your manhood. 



As pomologists, with what policy of action do we meet our enemies? We 

 use all prevention. We nip them in the bud. We uproot them in their incip- 

 ient growth. We destroy them before their work of devastation is accomplished. 



With the same wisdom let us restrain tlie appetite for wine and cider ere it 

 grow into an absorbing passion, as by indulgence it will be able to hurl its vic- 

 tim to despair. 



Let us preserve the fruits of our labors, in their normal health-giving quali- 

 ties, and prevent from the councils and records of our pomology, all incongru- 



