232 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



this life are. How full this pushing world is of parvenues who throw their 

 shoddy into the open market, who flaunt their ill-breeding in the public eye, 

 who fill their parlors with rubbish, and their libraries with trash, and their 

 galleries with shows. These things are perhaps the best that money can pur- 

 chase, but they all lack something which money cannot buy, hence to them they 

 are rubbish and trash. A generation or two hence it may be the garish osten- 

 tation will be toned down, and time will bring out the unpurchasable quality 

 which shows the market value. But all along the line we have wooden 

 houses with corinthian pillars, stucco and veneer, when plain brick and natural 

 wood would be a luxury to the eye, gardens filled with tropical plants whose 

 tops are frozen in the northern blizzards in place of the modest beauties, sweet 

 as the charm of the home circle, because thev are at home. 



The last illustration reminds me that I was to say something about horti- 

 culture and its relations to general culture. This is shown in the fact that 

 the world has generally placed horticulture in near relationship to culture and 

 civilization. The one pertains to the mind, the other appeals to the finer 

 senses. As culture finds its home in the finer sensibilities, it goes to litera- 

 ture on the one hand, and to horticulture on the other, to seek its highest 

 gratification in the mental and physical world. 



There is but little culture in the mine, or in the workshop, for the reason 

 that in neither is there any scope for cultivation. Cultivation implies that 

 nature is to do most of the work, to perfect the work after the tillage. The 

 wheat grows after the hand is withdrawn. The mine and the shop come to a 

 stand-still while the workman slumbers. Culture, you will recollect, is not a 

 creative quality; it is only an assistant to nature. There is always an element 

 of growth in culture, attending it; growth from a source other than itself. 

 Kings have tinkered clocks, and statesmen have had their workshops, but they 

 there sought relaxation, not growth. The relaxation in literature nas growth 

 in it. The labor in the garden has life in it, the pulse or throb of growth. 



There is a sort of companionship in life whether in a flower or an animal, 

 not in the sense there is in a machine. Engineers tell us that there is com- 

 panionship in an engine, that each engine on the track has a character ; that 

 some engines are lucky and some unlucky; that some respond readily to the 

 human touch, and that others, even from the same shop, and supposed to be 

 constructed in every respect in the same manner, are churlish and sluggish; 

 and there seems to be almost an affection between the former and the human 

 being who guides it. But in the opening bud, as it bursts in b auty to the sun- 

 light, there is almost the same look of intelligence to him who can read it as 

 in the eye of the young animal. There is life in it that responds to the life in 

 the man or woman who cherishes it. How often we hear good wives call their 

 flowers their pets, their children. There is companionship with them that 

 whiles away many monotonous hours. Bacon had them on his table as he 

 wrote his philosophy. Descartes had them by his side as he sought the stars 

 and the laws that swing them in their orbits. The great Conde fondled them 

 in the midst of his military campaigns. The ancients were as alive to them as 

 are we, sometimes I think more so, for the reason that they stood nearer nature 

 than we. Listen to what one of these said: "Who does not love flowers? 

 They embellish our gardens, they give a more brilliant lustre to our festivals ; 

 they are the interpreters of our affections; they are the testimonials of our 

 gratitude; they are often necessary to the pomp of our religious ceremonies 

 and they seem to associate and mingle their perfumes with the purity of our 



