ANNUAL MEETING AT NEVADA. 189 



the evergreens will hold their leaves all winter better than a wall between 

 us and the winds. 



Fellow horticulturists, among the trees of Missouri is our life work — 

 here it is our privilege to dwell. The leaves of Missouri foreshadow 

 the destiny of the central, last formed, best formed of the States of the 

 nation that leads on to the road to the destiny of the world. 



THE CYCLONE. 



Where is the field the cyclone has chosen to show its power and to 

 revel in its wanton mad destruction.'' It is not among the mountains of 

 Arkansas covered all over with the grand old forests. It is scarcely, 

 rarely, if ever, among the wooded hills of Missouri. It is only where the 

 trees are few. Dakota and Minnesota are almost bare. Naked Nebraska, 

 and out on the plains, the great American Uncertainty, where naught is 

 sure but steals, and nothing thrives like fraud; where the simoon withers 

 the leaves on the stray, discouraged trees and dwarfs the very grass, leav- 

 ing the brutes to perish, and bringing to human beings hunger and finan- 

 cial wreck. 



THE BLIZZARD. 



From its birthplace, even beyond the Artie circle, from a region 

 bare of all save a few stunted willows, the blizzard rushes unhindered 

 over States where the grain fields and the prairie'grass are all of growth 

 in summer, and where in winter the face of nature is hid from view by 

 a mantle of desolation. 



But between us in Holt county and the monster of the northwest, 

 lies a hundred miles of the hills and timber on either side of the Mis- 

 souri river, and since white men have been there no blizzard has reached 

 us without losing very much of its fierceness. ' 



The scope of hills and trees broadens south and east, beyond our 

 county — so near an outpost — and the fearful power roars among the 

 countless twigs of unnumbered trees, passing on, weakened at every 

 mile, losing the strength of its- dreadful rush, losing the strong grip of 

 its Artie cold, slowing into a gale, then to a wind that dies away where 

 the clear, free water runs unfrozen among the vast forests, the deep rest- 

 ful wildwoods of Arkansas. 



The leaves have gathered from the air, and the roots have sent from 

 the soil below. They worked together to build the trees, and behold, 

 the trees are abk: to conquer the fiercest demon of the continent. 



