13i MISSOURI STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



iSTot alone for pecuniary reasons do we summons the landscape 

 gardener, search out the treasures of the horticulturists, and grasp the 

 beauties of the floral kingdom, but we take a pardonable pride in our 

 work of making the waste places "blossom as the rose." This culti- 

 vation of tasteful surroundings, while it enhances the money value of 

 our homeplaces, is conducive to much higher results, and touches 

 upon the best interests of society, as well as the welfare of its indi- 

 vidual owner, and is no small factor in all that is desirable in a true 

 education. 



We well know that the foundation of character is laid in the home. 

 The making of the man or woman of the future begins here — taste, 

 culture,refinement or the reverse, are fostered and developed by the 

 surroundings of our early years. The adult usually " thinks back '' to 

 the old home, and the sacred associations of that sinless time have a 

 dee]) and strengthful intluence, for good or evil, upon the after years 

 of life. In this character-building horticulture plays no mean part ; its 

 influence can be oidy elevating and refining, appealing always to our 

 better impulses, drawing us closer to the great heart of Nature, and 

 teaching lessons of humility and reverence by every plant or flower; 

 fostering that instinctive recognition of the beautiful, which is one of 

 the highest incentives to a pure and noble life. 



Emerson says, "a tiller of the soil should be more than a farmer, 

 he should be a man upon a farm, and should reach all the way from 

 God down to the lowest insect." So too, a human being should be 

 more than an animal — he should be a whole man, and this he cannot 

 do amid the sterile necessities of hfe, discarding the ornamental and 

 beautiful. 



There are lessons to be learned from the seemingly most useless 

 flower. The object of toil should not stop at its pecuniary reward; 

 neither should a lesson stop with the merely intellectual, it should reach 

 the morals as well. 



A tree, full-foliaged, is a lovely object, yet, how much more desir- 

 able if, here and there, a delicate or rich-hued blossom glints among its 

 green leaves ! or bending toward the matted grasses with its harvest 

 of ripened fruits ! 



The home should be made beautiful, by all means ; as lovely as 

 spreading lawns, swaying leaflets, graceful shrubbery and fragiant blos- 

 soms can make it. j^othing is so attractive as a neat-looking house in 

 its setting of foliage, fruits and flowers. And from such a home, the 

 embryo man will go forth f^arrying with him a fund of happy memories ; 

 and the memory of a happy childhood has proven a bulwark of strength 



