• ANNUAL MEETING AT LEXINGTON. 131 



mastodon, the elephant and a host of lesser animals, trampled the mud 

 or sported on the drying* ridges. Faster the waters cut down the 

 channel that vented the greatest of lakes. Deeper the retreating 

 power scooped out the ravines, and higher rose the Loess Hills. Man 

 came. What man came first — the Indian — no, not he, the mound 

 builder, perhaps ? By no sign may we even guess any further back. 

 Time enough will efface from the planet we call ours every trace of 

 all that now is Of what will be, we know even less than we know of 

 what has been. 



Our. senses are for present use. The memory of the greatest 

 pleasure we have ever enjoyed can not take away the pain of a bee 

 sting; nor can the recollection of tne most cruel suffering destroy the 

 beauty or the tlavor of a fine fruit, nor obscure the glory of the trees 

 of the forest. Tell me, if you can, where is there more to enjoy than 

 among the wooded hills that were once covered by the waters of the 

 lake "? 



It is not, par excellence, a land of corn, nor a paradise of the hog ; 

 but it is a land full of pleasant fruits — a land flowing with milk and 

 wine and honey. I am familiar with the sight and the taste of the 

 fruits of our country from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and from the 

 lakes to the gulf, but nowhere else have I seen apples or peaches so 

 grandly planted or so highly flavored as here. I have seen the trees 

 of the tropics, and there is not one of them equal in the gorgeousness 

 of its beauty to the red oaks of the Loess Hills. Bare enough they 

 stand in winter, but not void of beauty even then. The furies of the 

 wintry air, the demons of the gales nor the "frost king" have any 

 power to harm them. See them respond to the breath of spring, and 

 hand from every twig their myriads of pendant flowers. Look well at 

 them in the quiet and the light of the early morning. See them swing 

 in the golden light of the noonday sun, as they yield to the touch of 

 the gentlest breeze. Their form is their own, and their color is the 

 color of red oak flowers. Watch them when their leaves are small, 

 and as the weeks and months go by behold what varying beauty they 

 put on — size, shape, color changing, but ever beautiful. See them 

 when the wizards that inhabit the earth have traveled up their roots, 

 perhaps for fifty feet, have painted a color that deserves to be called 

 red oak green ; and the fairies of the air have covered that color with 

 their inimitable varnish. See you, then, the hills covered with such 

 color as the evergreens of the mountains give not to anj- of their 

 masses. 



