250 MISSOURI STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



highly favored are those who have the additional benefit of a connec- 

 tion with onr State society in their noble work. 



Their influence is seen in the city. It is manifest in the country. 



He who would educate his children to love nature must cultivate 

 nature in her most beautiful forms. 



After the rendering of a delightful cornet solo, the following was 



read: 



PROSPECTS OF THOSE WHOLLY ENGAGED IN HORTI- 

 CULTURE. 



J. G. KINDER, NEVADA, MO. 



The subject assigned to me necessarily requires that I should look 

 into the future to some extent. Now I am not certain but Bro. Good- 

 man assigned me this subject because thinking no matter what subject 

 chosen, I would draw on my imagination anyhow, so he might as well 

 suit the subject to the individual. Or perhaps he thought 1 was a 

 prophet, or the son of a prophet. In any event I do not think I am 

 required to draw on my imagination, or to be much of a prophet to 

 emphatically assert that those wholly engaged in horticultural pursuits 

 have a prospect, and a good sized one at that; but what that prospect 

 is depends a great deal on the individual himself. If he is abreast of 

 the times, keeps posted on the best methods of culture, best varieties 

 and species of fruits to cultivate to suit the market he would supply, 

 reads the papers and declines to believe more than one-fourth that gets 

 into print, is industrious and honest, I believe he has a better prospect 

 of health, wealth and happiness than any man engaged in that noblest 

 of all pursuits, the tilling of the soil. 



But if this individual is careless of his methods of culture, and of 

 handling the products of the orchard, vineyard and berry patch; if he 

 puts too much faith in every fancy colored novelty presented to him 

 by the silver-tongued tree dispenser, instead of making the bulk of 

 his plantings of old, standard, well-known varieties, that are not only 

 generally successful, but are particularly so in his locality, because 

 sometimes a variety of fruit must be generally successful, in order to 

 become sufficiently well known to be in demand — I repeat, that unless 

 he keeps abreast of the times'and posted on all these essential points, 

 he has a most brilliant prospect of making a stupendous failure, and 

 it will not be long that he will be wholly engaged in horticulture, 



