SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL MEETING. 233 



prayers and the homage we address to the Almighty. Happy are those who 

 love and cultivate them." 



But floriculture is not the whole of horticulture. The latter is defined as 

 the most perfect method of tilling the earth so as to produce the best results, 

 whether the products are objects of utility or beauty. It is the acme of agri- 

 culture, with more culture in it of the kind we are discussing, than in agri- 

 culture for the reason that there is more personality in it, more cultivation 

 and a better grade of products. There is but little scope for taste in a farm; 

 they are all of the same type. There are no two gardens alike, there is an individu- 

 ality in them. Whatever calls for taste has culture in it, whether it be a 

 home, a room, a garden, a wrap or a bonnet. Whatever calls for harmony in 

 detail and results, whether in a landscape, a garden or a garment, has culture 

 in it. 



There is no culture, however, in the incongruous, whether in a garden or a 

 parlor. I spoke of inaptness of the tropical in our gardens. I refer to it 

 again, not in a carping spirit, though I think we are drifting too much away 

 from nature in forcing the climate in the selection of our plants. In my 

 judgment of the cardinal principle for our gardens and landscapes is to 

 secure the best selections of indigenous plants, shrubs, and trees, or such as 

 may readily adapt themselves to their surroundings. Our culture may be too 

 choice, may cost too much, and there is no culture at all in the end. A hardy 

 climate should have hardy plants — strawberries in their season, not in January. 

 A thousand dollar orchid, or a hundred-dollar tulip, or a twenty-five-dollar 

 cactus may please for a costly plaything, but for a genuine pleasure that you 

 can sit down and keep company with, give me the plants that feel themselves 

 at home so to speak. Not that I would discard entirely the plants of the 

 tropics, but I would put them where we put the wild beasts from the same 

 region, behind the bars, to be gazed at as curiosities or as objects of study. 

 How many of our ladies spend their time and energies or, shall I say it, waste 

 time and affections, on some dwarfed, scraggy, ill-shaped house plant that 

 shivers at the sound of the icy blast, and bears, it may be, or may be not, one 

 puny flower, a dwarf in its northern home — no not home but habitation, when 

 in its native home it riots in hedge rows. They seem to love them. That is 

 not strange, however, They always love the crippled child the best, that one 

 who the most needs their care. But what taste deliberately to select a cripple, 

 when the same, strong, vigorous and equally beautiful can be had just as well! 

 But I dare not enlarge, as I may cross some of your fancies or offend some 

 one's taste. I cannot, however, help adding that if it is culture you are seek- 

 ing, do not try to raise oranges in Michigan; culture I repeat a^ain is the fit- 

 ness of things; and there I would stop but for one further suggestion I have 

 on my mind, and that is, that I rejoice in the tendency to utilize more and 

 more the grasses of our yards and lawns. What would not the denizens of 

 the tropics give for our grass plats? What a foil they are for tree and shrub 

 and flower. A well kept lawn with its velvety green is the fittest of fit things 

 for our climate. I sit before my library window as I write these words and 

 look around the college park of 100 acres with its winding drives and walks, 

 its trees yet clothed in a foliage as finely tinted as the tropics can show, with 

 its sweep of grass and verdure, with the towers of the buildings in the distance 

 just overtopping the trees. I am satisfied, not exuberant, but solemnly satisfied, 

 solidly pleased. In the distance I can see the conservatory, but I rarely visit it, 

 and then only to see the show, but when I wish to rest to find that culture which 



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