SUMMER MEETING AT OREGON, 39 



— in fact, throughout the southwest and south — even to the Gulf of 

 Mexico. Also, the East consumes enormously of our apple crop, and 

 large quantities are annually shipped to England and other European 

 countries. But a very small portion of the world, it must be remembered, 

 is adapted to the gr >\vth of fruits, indigenous to the temperate zone, and 

 but a comparatively small portion of this zone itself gives anything like 

 surety to the growth of desirable fall and winter fruits. This gives us an 

 advantage which is of no inconsiderable importance to us, furnishing us 

 an assurance, as it does, that a market we shall always have for such 

 products — and, within easy reach of our doors. An assurance which 

 at once becomes a thing of great value to us, if but properly cared for at 

 our hands. 



And neither should we consider and look upon these immediately 

 resulting financial benefits as the only matters which should be considered 

 by us as horticulturists, — aye, or by the people generally in this country 

 in whatever fields of labor they may be employed as the great and only 

 desiderata of their lives. We owe our first duty, of course, to " keeping 

 the wolf from the coor; " but we owe a secondary duty to our country, 

 and a duty which is no less, at least than third in importance, is ourselves. 

 We all must become wearied at times from some extended struggle in 

 combatting with the realities of life, and are sorely in need of a diversion. 

 At. such times it does us great good to go from our fields, from our coun- 

 ters, Irom our offices and from our work-shops, to those dear retreats 

 which we have learned to call our homes ; — and there take a stroll, if 

 seasonable, among the flower plants, along the shady paths in our yards, 

 or through the vegetable gardens or orchards, conversing pleasantly with 

 our loved ones, and thus diverting our minds for a while from our strug- 

 gles with the world. It is but natural for us to delight in the beautiful 

 in nature and art — to enjoy the flavor of fruits, the odors and colors of 

 flowers, and to be attracted by the charms of music, pictures and poetry; 

 and we should not entirely neglect and forget in our race for wealth and 

 power, all these pleasures and natural inclinations, and force them into 

 a condition of perverted, dwarfed and stunted growth. These things are 

 just as necessary to our physical and mental well-being, as is that of fin- 

 ancial prosperity to the accumulation of wealth. 



But, I fear that I have already consumed too much of your valuable 

 time — realizing, as I do, that some of you have traveled a great many 

 miles in order that you might be here, and that you have but a limited 

 time to stay — and realizing, furthermore, that you are here for the purpose 

 of consulting together upon matters of concern to yourselves as horticult- 

 urists, and not for the purpose of listening to speeches — and now hojjing 



