180 MISSOURI STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



for their very tenderness, will soon be at the work of their annual gen- 

 eration that must be done in a few months. Tons of leaves will come 

 in a few days on the acres where all the long winter only the buds were 

 waiting. Each leaf will have its coatings, cells, glands, its thousands, or 

 tens of thousands of mouths to each square inch, hairs to regulate its 

 breathing in and breathing out, and the protoplasm and the chlorophyl 

 will be moving in currents streaming all through its structure. When 

 the sun shines the leaves will be taking in carbonic acid gas. When 

 night is upon our side of the world they will be taking in oxygen, and 

 all the time busy working these over into material for tree or plant. 

 The roots will search through the soil below for their tribute and send 

 it through channels that cannot be seen, up to meet the product of the 

 leaves. All summer long this most wonderful of all buildings goes cease- 

 lessly on. 



Chemistry is lost among these operations. Mechanics cannot ex- 

 plain the comings and goings of these substances ; of the ultimate of 

 the how or the why, we simply know nothing. We call it life, but what 

 is life ? The immediate results are of first importance to us, and we do 

 know that the fields bring forth the grains and the fruits, and the 

 vegetables we need, and the flowers we so much admire ; the forests are 

 reared ; the air is made fit to breathe, and all over our landscapes is 

 spread a clothing of beauty ; and beauty is scarcely less necessary to 

 the cultivated, refined human being than is his food. 



In the presence of the operations of nature, what need of " Robin- 

 son Crusoe" or " Sinbad the Sailor;" " Gulliver" or '• Munchausen," the 

 '• Arabian Nights" or the last French novel. Here are stories infinitely 

 more wonderful than any of them ; not silly, sickly fancies, but facts to 

 be had for the reading ; facts the searching out of which brings its own 

 high reward ; beauties, the common property of the millionaire and of 

 the man that sees them from the poorhouse ; knowledge to be gained 

 tor the furtherance of knowledge was made a part of man's nature. 



Perhaps we cannot just now see a dollar, or food, or clothing in 

 knowledge that apjjears to be entirely abstract; but allow me to believe 

 that all knowledge of nature gained, adds to a fund from which only 

 good will come. For the enjoyment it brings, and with confidence in 

 such result, let us "get wisdom." We constantly speak of the 



PURE FRESH AIR. 



Do we ever think how impure it is, or how foul it would become if 

 there was nothing to regulate its condition ? 



