14(> NEBRASKA STATE IK iK riCII/rt'ItAL SOCIETY 



Why not educate the people of Nebraska to the refining influence of flowers 

 as that garden has to the people of Missouri. It would be of great value to 

 the horticulturists of this states as a great number of plants could be 

 tested for our conditions, and surely some of the beautiful and useful 

 plants found at Shaw's garden will also do well here. It would be also 

 an aid to you in that the plants would be scientifically and properly classi- 

 fied and you as well as everybody else could use it for comparison. The 

 place for such a garden is at the farm where there is now a nucleus of 

 one at the present time. In the end I can not conceive of anything that 

 would be of greater value to horticulture of Nebraska than a Nebraska 

 botanical garden. 



DISCUSSION. 



Mr. G. A. Marshall: We have a gentleman here in the meeting who 

 I think is a member of this association and if he is not, we will pick his 

 pockets until we make him one. I know he is interested in this paper 

 because his head kept going back and forth, and I know he has some 

 information for us, and I think now is a good time to ask him to give us a 

 little discussion on this paper. I will call on Mr. Peters of Omaha. 



Mr. Peters: What I do not know would fill a pretty large book, and 

 what I do know would fill a very small one. I am interested in fiowers, 

 however, and always have been, and I think the time is coming now, when 

 the perennial plants, the newer perennials are going to be planted much 

 more than in the past. This is a new country, and the people have been 

 trying to make money. Self-preservation is the first thing. After that 

 come the arts; and really landscape gardening and flowers come after 

 pictures. And that is an art beyond the ability of a painter of pictures. 

 Take the old countries, the landscape gardening was one of their last 

 ventures, I believe. As well as in the southern part of Europe or Eng- 

 land. The eastern part of the United States is today doing this quite ex- 

 tensively. We begin it here, and you horticultural men can do nothing 

 better than to develop a taste for this class of work. It beautifies the 

 country. "Father" Harrison is right when he says, "beauty is wealth." 

 You want the people to fill your cities and farms and counties. You do 

 not want people that have money only, — of course you want them too, but 

 you want to make a beautiful place for all to live in. Yo i want to get 

 the cultivated class, that is what makes a desirable community of people, 

 people who have something else in their minds besides the making of the 

 dollars. To my mind this is one of the finest things in the world. Sonte 

 of those boxes of apples over in the show room are as beautiful as any 

 bouquet you could make. But some of the boxes \vere a little irregular 

 and some of the apples were a little rotten, and that spoils the bouquet. 

 You must take these out every morning. W^hen the eyes of the people 

 are pleased, you can interest them, and when the eyes are not pleased, you 

 can not interest them. So that reverts back to the beauty of apples, and 

 if you please the eye of the visitor you please the visitor, and you may 

 get him as a resident of your county or city, and I would like to see this 

 society as was proposed yesterday, make up a little list of plants that are 



