256 MISSOURI STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



However, I was glad when I learned that this meeting- was to be 

 held in Lebanon, 'mid her woodland surroundings, where such open- 

 hearted hospitality has met us so lavishly. 



It is said that lofty heights lead to lofty thoughts, and here on the 

 summit of the O/.arks we can look back retrospectively to the towering 

 cedars of Lebanon, where Christianity first met and began the conquest 

 of the earth. Your churches, your Christian homes, your progressive 

 people, your modern civilization render by contrast the glories of 

 your ancient namesake, at the feet of Mt. Carinel, overlooking the blue 

 Mediterranean, where Hiram made golden apples for Solomon's pic- 

 tures of silver, and made the cedars of Lebanon worthy of their place 

 in history, as you have done yours. 



Eudpryo horticulturists we all were, when boys, around the old 

 homestead, and it pains as now to think the woods of our boyhood are 

 fast disappearing. 



You remember the path that led down to the old spring, through 

 the woods, beneath the old oaks, at the old home ; and you can hear 

 mother calling from the spring, when you were wading after minnows, 

 utterly oblivious of the fact that you were sent after water. 



Do you remember the old chestnut tree up on the hill, while that 

 little brown-faced girl, in a sun-bonnet, held her apron to catch the 

 chestnuts you sent rattling down through the branches, while you 

 builded air castles that make you sigh for now. Life in the woods then 

 was indeed studies, poems of unwritten joy, and peans of silent song, 

 where children's voices mingled with that of song-birds; and we some- 

 times wonder now, why God, in His infinite wisdom, does not let us 

 linger, children forever, in the woods. 



You remember the little brown school-house down by the woods, 

 and the hole in the wall from which you watched the jay-birds in the 

 oaks by the brook, and heartily wished you were a jay-bird — that you 

 could take wings and fly away and be at rest. 



You remember the road that led you home, through the woods, 

 from school, bow you played tag, and swung your dinner buckets, and 

 yelled to let the whole world know that you were alive, and was real 

 glad of it. If along this road you divided a rosy-cheeked apple, that 

 mother had tucked into your pocket, with a rosy-cheeked girl, who 

 pretended she did not want it. 



Ah ! How dear now are the memories of our childhood woodland 

 homes— homes that heaven came very close to sometimes, and show- 

 ered upon us blessings and sunshine, and made all the world to us 

 golden and crimson with the tints from hands of artist angels ; who 

 painted the sky so blue, the woods so green, scattered the frosts of 



