410 MISSOURI STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



As early in the spring of 1858 as trees might be sent by the rivers, 

 a relative of mine who lived three miles from the place where we had 

 located our nursery in Iowa, received five hundred apple trees from 

 Squeenicks. He met them at Forest City, and when he had hauled 

 them sixty miles over the wild prairie to his new home asked me to 

 come over and see the boxes unpacked. My relative had ordered, and 

 had paid for first-class trees ; but when they were spread out on the 

 native sod of Iowa — oh, what a sight. My relative was himself an 

 excellent judge oi trees, and we saw before us a lot of culls, refuse, and 

 unsalable trash. Very few of them had even the outside appearance of 

 good trees ; and three-fourths of them were fit for nothing but the brush 

 pile and the fire. But they had been paid for and received — the swind- 

 ler was hundreds of miles away and there was practically no redress. 



Two or three years after, another man was about to send to the 

 same villain for a large bill. I told him of the above case and urged 

 him not to send to that man ; but he did send a large order for pear 

 trees and some other things, and far worse than threw his money away. 

 Still not satisfied, a cemetery association, and individuals joined in 

 sending to the sarnc sink hole several hundred dollars for trees, ever- 

 greens and shrubbery. Most of the stuff received for that money was 

 worthless, but Page county had enough of Squeenicks. 



That man's history is briefly told. The samples of his style that I 

 have given here are enough ; and it is only necessary to add that he re- 

 treated from his victims and from his business, and now but poorly fills a 

 contemptible obscurity. 



I have instanced these three exceptions to prove the rule. Over 

 against these three I place a long array of names, too numerous to be 

 given. Names of men who love their calling tor its own sake and who 

 followed it because they loved it ; men who perseveringly sought out its 

 facts and patiently worked out its details ; who would rather give to the 

 world a valuable variety of apples than to conquer and rob a province ; 

 who could see beauty, smell fragrance, taste flavor, understand values, 

 calculate the finer effects and appreciate all these, and to whom such 

 work for their families, their neighbors and their kind was high pleasure. 

 The confidence of such men in each other is instinctive ; it is spontane- 

 ous ; it can be felt in the air. It was a strong expression of " The 

 poet of nature " when he wrote " With such as these may I be 



