46 MBBRASKA STATE HORTICULTURAI/ SOCIETY. 



yourselves concerning them. But it is wonderful how the interest in 

 parks continues to grow when you Icnock out saloons, and as the saloons 

 gOj^out we knock in the parks. That is my experience. Parks are more 

 permanent and don't have to be knocked out but we knock in one every 

 yea,r. They are like plants; it don't hurt them to get wet. 



I am credited with having started the park system. After I had 

 lived here about twenty years I discovered there was something wrong 

 with the town. I could not think what it might be, except it might be 

 pretty close to Blue Springs and not far from Lincoln. I got to looking 

 around, but could not think of anything or any way to help the town 

 out; we had tried almost everything. But the park idea was suggested. 

 There was a fellow who got behind with his taxes and the question arose 

 as to what we should do in the matter. I said take the ground for a 

 park and use it for a park. They accepted and acted on my advice and 

 are using it today as a park. 



We have plenty of nice homes. I was pleased with Mr. McMullen's 

 address. He might have said home beautiful, as my friend Gates would 

 have said, but beautiful in a literary way it may be a plain little cottage 

 of a poor man, a man who works ten hours a day and is stubbing along 

 trying to raise his family, yet around that little home there will be a 

 climbing vine at the end of the porch, there will be a beautiful foliage 

 around a circle bed in the driveway, and even the back yard may be 

 ornamented. It is not absolutely necessary that the back yard shall 

 be a dumping ground. 



We have just commenced our work in Wymore along the lines of 

 beautiful homes. We had to get some parks first, because we didn't 

 know how else to dispose of these patches of ground, so we will now get 

 the beautiful homes started. There is one started in our part of town. 

 Near that park you could not buy one of those lots there for $400, and 

 now there is getting to be some beautiful homes near that park. If I 

 was going to speak of beautiful homes and describe them according 

 to the inmates of loving parents, thrifty and studious, with a loving 

 family growing up around them, I could describe hundreds of them. If 

 I was going to describe beautiful homes according to architectural 

 beauty, I could describe but very few. If I was going to point out tp 

 you homes made beautiful by flowers, trees, ornamental gardens and 

 that kind of enterprise, I could show you hundreds of them in Wymore, 

 although we are not noted for fine houses or rich people. We have 

 neither in Wymore. We are a plain, hard-working people, industrious 

 but poor. 



As I said, we are making a beginning along the lines of beautiful 

 homes. We have a cemetery association here composed principally of 

 ladies who have taken hold of the cemetery work. Since they have 

 come into it the association has improved wonderfully. It is quite a 

 respectable place now, and is becoming more beautiful every day. It does 

 not take money, as Mrs. Reuling said, to make a beautiful home, but 

 It does take education to make it. You must know how to beautify. 



