TWENTY FIFTH ANNUAL MEETING. 219 



GARDENS FOR TOWN AND COUNTRY HOMES. 



BY PROF. W. W. TRACY OF DETROIT. 



In the very beginning of the history of our race the edict was pro- 

 nounced, that henceforth man should live by the sweat of his brow ; and 

 ever since then he has been trying to escape it, even trying to find some 

 way to live without labor. And has he succeeded? The regular click- 

 thud of the spinning jenny, doing under the guidance of one hand that 

 which formerly required an hundred, and doing it better than they could 

 possibly do it; the clitter-clatter of our mowing machines and reapers, 

 taking the place of aching backs and stiffened arms in the cutting of our 

 grass and grain, all answer, yes. But the weary, tired look on the faces 

 of the men who pour out of our mills at night after their ten, twelve, 

 or fourteen hours of labor; the shortened lives of our professional and 

 business men; your experience and mine, all give a far more emphatic, 

 if not a louder, negative answer. And this must always be so, for he who 

 uttered that edict was not a man that he should lie, or the son of man that 

 his words should come to naught; and whatever might have been, we are 

 so constituted that no sooner do we by wit or wisdom contrive some 

 plan by which we can do in one hour that which formerly required an 

 hundred, than some new want or desire, the gratification of which is 

 absolutely essential to our happiness, to our comfort, even, springs up to 

 demand the labor of the remaining ninety-nine. 



The great question, then, is not how to escape labor, since that 'S 

 impossible, but how may we get the greatest good from our labor? In 

 considering such a question it is well to look at the past and see how the 

 labor of man has been expended. Beneath the desert sands of Egypt we 

 find buried cities, the monuments of the labor of those who lived thou- 

 sands of years ago. If we examine this work we will find it replete with 

 ornament, and evidence everywhere that these workers aimed to please 

 the eye. Travelers tell us that modern towns of Greece and Italy are 

 built of the fragments of sculptured marble that formed the ornament of 

 the ancient cities. Surely, if we judge of what our predecessors valued 

 by the products of their labors which they have left behind, we must con- 

 clude that a large part of that labor was for the sake of the beautiful. 



But ours is a utilitarian age, and in it and among our busy, money- 

 making, money-loving people, we shall find no such foolish waste of labor 

 for the sake of appearance. Are you sure? Think of how large a pro- 

 portion of the labor necessary to convert the wool into the clothes you 

 wear was spent to please the eye. Look about you here, or in the plain- 

 est home, and see how much of the labor, the evidence of which you see, 

 was spent for looks' sake. No, man always has — he does and he always 

 will — spend a large proportion of his labor, over and above what is neces- 

 sary to supply his mere animal wants, those he has in common with the 

 brute, for the sake of the beautiful. 



Let us go higher and look at the work of the Almighty, as we see it in 

 nature. A leaf is a contrivance to expose a large surface of matter to be 



