HARDY ORNAMENTALS 99 



Already some of your patrons are reading the Twentieth 

 Century Farmer and are taking catalogues of eastern nurseries 

 and an interest is being aroused. And when the people wake 

 up to know how many things they might have had, they will 

 blame you for not telling them, and eastern firms will soon send 

 their agents into your territory and they will sell your patrons 

 stock by the thousands that you ought to furnish them. You 

 must keep up with the procession. 



We do not say who is to blame, but the horticultural depart- 

 ment of the University of Nebraska is away behind the demands 

 of the state. While the animal industry department is at the 

 front, and challenges the world, horticulture is dragging in the 

 rear, and I think makes by far the poorest showing of any state 

 in the union. With an able and intelligent professor, where is 

 the handicap? 



The leading horticulturists of the state, as well as the leading 

 citizens, feel that a change must soon come. Our state farm 

 should be the Mecca of the lovers of the beautiful. Every tree 

 that can be made to grow and every flowgr that will bloom in 

 our climate should be there. There should be at least 1,000 

 kinds of peonies. The 130 kinds of lilacs now in other stations 

 and the thirty or more kinds of spireas and as many more of 

 the syringas, together, with the great family of viburnums 

 all should be in evidence. Now, when the young farmer goes 

 to the farm he sees the very triumph of animal industry and 

 goes away enthused. He ought also to see the triumphs of ad- 

 vanced horticulture. They are now making preparations for 

 the education of farm girls, and they should be inspired by 

 splendid displays of choice plants and flowers. 



Let the young people see the great family of lilacs, with their 

 wealth of varied foliage, in bloom from early spring till the first 

 of July. Let them see thousands of tulips open the campaign 

 of loveliness, followed by thousands of columbines which have 

 dissolved all the colors of the rainbow in their shadings; let gen- 

 erous fields of peonies open their bloom and form a carpet of 

 splendor fit to be touched with the feet of angels; let them see 

 great masses of gaiUardias and iDansies lift their happy faces to 

 thoes who pass by; let the Oriental poppies dazzle with their 

 splendor, and the generous fields of phloxes in robes of peerless 



