334 State HorticuUural Society. 



Wc behold patriotic devotion in a gray-haired matron, a very 

 mother of mothers, on whom coming generations will gaze, as we do 

 now, with silent reverence. Such a woman was President Roosevelt's 

 mother when, on a certain occasion, the home was decorated with flags- 

 of the Union, she put out from her window the Confederate flag she 

 loved. 



Bryant sings not of woman's form and features, fashioned of clay, 

 but of her immortal part. When we look at the picture of Evangeline 

 we forget Longfellow's portrayal of her loveliness, but we think of her 

 in her faithful wanderings. 



And in the story of the sweet Puritan Priscilla, what a lifelike pic- 

 ture of common sense, energy, gentleness and piety, such as befitted one 

 of the foremothers of our own country. 



As Hiawtaha thought of Minnehaha, as he laid her in that snowy 

 grave vmder the moaning hemlock, we think of her as a loving and 

 dutiful wife. 



I would like to present three pictures to you and let you judge as 

 to woman's worth in horticulture. The first, in Lewis county, Kentucky, 

 is the home of a floral hermit who was a brother of Mr. Henry 

 Shaw, whose garden is the pride of our trans-Mississippi metropolis. 

 He devoted a long life to horticulture, and became a master in the sci- 

 ence. The botanic and common names of a thousand varieties rolled 

 with familiarity from his tongue's end. His two-storied dwelling was 

 almost hidden from view by the exotics growing about it in rank pro- 

 fusion. It required close inspection to distinguish the material of which, 

 his house w'as constructed, so covered and concealed it was by the foliage: 

 curiously directed. His generous means enabled him to import from all 

 parts of the globe every variety of the vegetating kind. He had a rep- 

 utation common to hermits for hating women, but his gentle spirit cer- 

 tainly could hate nothing. His hundred colonies of bees he called his 

 children, and the birds were his angels. He ate his meals in the open 

 air. The feathered songsters followed him through his meandering 

 walks, and fed upon the berries from the bushes. One great source of 

 delight was to domesticate the sweet warblers and teach them to feed 

 from his hands. He was respected and loved by his neighbors. On 

 one occasion a company, impressed with the gentleman's simplicity and 

 good nature as he showed them about his premises, ventured to ex- 

 press, upon leaving, the belief that the one who so exquisitely enjoyed 

 flowers might hope to dwell in mansions of roses above. He replied, 

 "Sirs, yours is the first and best encouragement ever offered me as to 

 my future home. I am now ready to enter upon its fruition." Then, 



