312 MISSOURI STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



days. As the time passed on the trees grew, while the family were rest- 

 ing. Father had many chances to sell his farm at $io, $15 and $20 per 

 acre more than other farms in same locality. By and by a man came, 

 dropped in the neighborhood and offered father $80 per acre for his 

 farm — he sold it ; and fourteen years from the time of my leaving home 

 I returned, but a change had taken place. The old home was occupied 

 by a stranger, and that stranger was ready to sell me the old home back 

 at $5 less per acre than he paid for it ; I was once more in the old home 

 to enjoy the shade and hear the birds sing from the branches of the 

 trees I had helped to plant twenty years before. But another change 

 was to take place, I put the old home in nice shape again, here and 

 there, and thought I would be contented, but fourteen years had made 

 great changes. Some of my school mates that had played with me un- 

 der those trees or in the orchard, or fishing or swimming in the pond 

 near by, were sleeping their last sleep, some were in one part of 

 the country, some in another and it did not prove to be the happy home 

 it once was. I sold the old home at one hundred round dollars per 

 acre, other farms just as good in all respects, excepting the maples, could 

 have been bought at $75 to $80. I know by this that every man own- 

 ing a home, let him be the young man just starting out in life, or the 

 middle-aged man, or the man who is nearing the end of life's journey, 

 if you have vacant ground, plant a tree, if not a fruit tree, or a slip, 

 then plant a shade tree and if you and I do not live to enjoy it, 

 our children may. And when we pass away our neighbors and 

 friends may truly say of us, he has made this part of the country better 

 by his having lived in it ; and in closing can do no better than quote the 

 beautiful lines written by Lucy Larcom on planting a tree : 



PLANT A TREE. 



He who plants a tree 

 Plants a hope. 

 Rootlets up through fibres blindly grope ; 

 Leaves unfold into horizons free. 



So man's life must climb 



From the clods of time 



Unto heaven's sublime. 

 Canst thou prophesy, thou little tree, 

 What the glory of thy boughs shall be ? 



