:\IISCELLANEOUS PAPERS. 429 



health. Let us look at horticultare as a science. I will illustrate my 

 ideas by a wheel. The hub is the common school education from v\iiich 

 the spokes spring- out. The spokes are the sciences, and the rim that 

 receives all the spokes is horticulture. It has something taken from 

 every science and depends upon them all." 



Mr. L. B. Pierce, of Tallmadge, O., was called upon to respond to 

 the toast " Our American homes — we love the horticulture that makes 

 them beautiful outside, and our wives, mothers and daughters who fill 

 them with joy inside." In reply he said that he thought the sentiment 

 expressed completely all that was worth saying. If the home was 

 beautified both outside an in, there was nothing left to desire. " What 

 can be more beautiful," asked Mr. Pierce, "than to see a home sur- 

 rounded by green lanes, shady trees and bright flowers?" 



Mr. A. C. Green, of Rochester, iN". Y., editor of Green's Fruit Ee- 

 corder, responded briefly to the toast, '• The Press — It is like a great 

 tree whose roots extend into all the relations of life ; and whose 

 branches, spreading wider and wider, shelter a free, happy and pros- 

 perous people." 



In responding to the toast "Horticultural Societies — They can no 

 m.ore be run without a good secretary than a kite can fly without a long- 

 tail," Secretary Ragan thanked the press for the reports of the con- 

 vention, and said the annual reports of the society would be largely 

 made up of the newspaper accounts of the proceedings. " Horticul- 

 ture at the south — it is aspiring like her mountains ; it is widespread 

 like her plains ; its harvests are golden and sweet like her peaches and 

 oranges," was responded to by Mr. Boggs, of North Carolina, who be- 

 gan his remarks by saying: " I have been greeted with bullets to-day ^ 

 and was chased by the bullets of some boys from your section about 

 twenty-five years ago. I believe I prefer the present kind of gr^et- 

 i'^g." Mr. Boggs then said that horticulture in the south was in its in- 

 fancy, but there was a bright future before it since the people had be- 

 gun to divide labor. Mr. John Little, of Ontario, was called upon to 

 reply to "The Dominion to the north of us— its vigorous climate makes 

 a vigorous horticulture. We invite the fullest co-operation of our 

 northern neighbors in our American society, which is as much theirs 

 as our own." Mr. Little, in an eloquent speech full of feeling, spoke 

 of the hospitable reception given him in this State, and proceeded to 

 discuss the science, compared the horticultural beauties of the earth 

 with Zion's Hill, where he hoped to meet all present, as they, he said^ 

 would never hear his voice again on this shore. " The ancient empire 

 of Japan, she has sent us her fruits and her flowers, and now she is 



