45 MISSOURI STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



is the fertile soil where best ^row the seeds of morality, the garden of 

 truth and virture, the wholesome condition for religion and purity; and 

 that private worth and public character are moulded within her sacred 

 })rccincts. 



To be happy at home should be the ultimate goal of our ambition ; 

 it should be the end toward which every enterprise tends ; it should be 

 the fragrance of social harmony and the inspiration of all labor. As 

 has been beautifully said: "If love reign not there; if charity spread 

 not her downy mantle over all ; if peace prevail not ; if contentment be 

 not a meek and merry dweller therein ; if virture rear not her beautiful 

 children and religion come not in her white robe of gentleness to lay 

 her hand in benediction on every head the home is not complete." We 

 all build for ourselves ideal homes. Let us strive to realize those ideals. 

 Not many years ago, where now millions of happy homes rear their 

 heads and sing praises to God, stood dense forests in whose solitary 

 midst the tread of man was never heard, where once vast and fertile 

 plains stretched away as far as the eye could reach toward the western 

 mountains where earth and sky seemed to meet and things material be- 

 came things ethereal, is now the scene of a great and busy people; where 

 once wild and useless vegetation grew rank, and the poisonus serpent 

 lurked to sting the heel of the innocent passer by, now a world of grain 

 jostle to the caress of the prairie wind and golden harvests nod in the 

 vernal sun ; where formerly the wild flower, the seedlings of centuries — 

 God's own beautifiers, shed their aroma, now the fragrance of the clover 

 blossom freight the air and lowing herds breath contentment. 



The music of industry resound from hill and dale and prosperity 

 blesses the millions. These are marks of honest toil. The instinct for 

 home so deeply planted in our nature, has called into existence these 

 beneficient institutions and reared this mighty nation on the intelligence, 

 morality and refinement of home. " 



Man was created with an instinctive love for the beautiful, a capac- 

 ity and longing for the refinements of taste and feeling. With these he 

 can fit and furnish home with forms and hues that are pleasant to the 

 eye. 



The trees climb over the ridges of hills in glittering troops to catch 

 the first light of the morning and to wave their green banners in the 

 glow of the setting sun. They woo the clouds from afar and make the 

 heavens dissolve in rain when the harvest is dying for water. Flowers 

 adorn and chasten the festivities of home with emblems of innocence 

 and love. There is nothing in the paintings of the great masters or the 

 most costly and elaborate decorations of architecture to be compared 



