176 STATE H0RTICX3LTURAL SOCIETY. 



productive of much pleasure and some profit. It was a constant won- 

 der to the writer to find among the Ha^vaiian Islanders and the Japan- 

 ese such a passionate love for flowers, and the Jap?,.ne8e almost vener- 

 ate trees, and the tender care and skill displayed in the growing of 

 trees was worthy of more profitable results, for in that country the 

 idea of profit is very much below our estimate of profit, for if the 

 laborer there can save a few dollars a year he is satisfied. A tree that 

 is blown over by a typhoon is carefully examined, and if life is left, it 

 is staked up, even if in a park, and left to live and produce fruit and 

 flowers until it dies, and the careful manner in which the work is done 

 shows that they have a regard for the life of the tree that shows great 

 appreciation of the value. 



The Chinese are too utilitarian to secure much in the way or orna- 

 ment, and so we do not see much except in the way of fruits for con- 

 sumption and sale, and the esthetic part so observable in Hawaii and 

 Japan is almost wholly wanting. Even the European and American 

 rt^sidents of Southern China, where, with care, much could be grown, 

 seldom have much in the way of adornment, and little in the way of 

 fruits for the table, preferring rather to buy of the people further south 

 and from the islands of the sea rather than to produce the fruits needed. 

 Binanas are grown and eaten for the reason that they are a cheap ar- 

 ticle of food. The Chinese being a thoroughly practical people, in 

 their way, they live on that which will sustain life at the least cost, 

 atid so horticulture does not play an important part in their agricultural 

 operations. 



In India nature does about all that is done in the horticultural 

 field, and it seems ever a rule that where nature does so much the people 

 do but little. Generally there is a plenty, for nature is generally kind, 

 but in seasons of scarcity then famine ensues. In India, as in Hawaii, 

 everything is evergreen and a long, very long, season of bloom and 

 almost continuous crops of fruits follow, and fruits become an impor- 

 tant part of the daily food. The possibilities of horticulture in the 

 tropics are not easily measured, but it is an undoubted fact that little 

 systematic work is being done, and there seems little prospect for any 

 iuiprovement, for the climate, or the laziness of the people, or some 

 decree of fate, seems to say that where labor is unnecessary little work 

 is done. And yet the people there do work and work hard at times; 

 bat to plant trees would require work to be done for a time so long in 

 the future that the individual does not seem to think that he will live 

 to CDJoy the results of his labor, and consequently he toils not, neither 

 does he spin (for he goes naked and consequently he does not have to 

 spin), and yet he is surrounded by the beauties of nature to such an 



