THE ETHICS OF HORTICULTURE. '^" "?"- 219 



It has shown what will endure trial and wliat will not. We are 

 amazed at the possibilities of our soil. For three years we have seen 

 orchards laden with fruit when in all that time it was impossible for 

 a drop of water to reach the lower roots. Our eastern counties con- 

 stitute one of the finest fruit belts of the world, and all over the state 

 we begin to know our possibilities. Instead of yielding to dipcour- 

 agement it is time to sound the "forward march." Every farmer can 

 have a select patch near his windmill, and the time to irrigate is in the 

 winter. Let the subsoil be laden with moisture in the spring; then, 

 with good cultivation, you can laugh at what may come. Irrigation 

 will be used more and more. Our rivers carry off waste enough to 

 make a whole state fruitful. Time will come when the farmer may 

 have his greenhouse, which will be a pleasure and a profit. Very 

 economical plants can be put in at small expense, and with a little care 

 even exotic grapes can be raised with profit, and home can have both 

 luxury and beauty. Art aids nature wonderfully. Our bright win- 

 ter suns would aid greenhouses materially. An English horticultur- 

 ist tells me that nature cannot keep up with art, that there is no cli- 

 mate and there are no conditions so perfect as man creates under the 

 glass. Pineapples are made to grow twice their natural size, and the 

 Muscat grape has been grown in clusters two feet long with the berries 

 cut in two large enough to match the old English penny. There is 

 very much waste time in winter which could be very profitably de- 

 voted to the greenhouse, bringing the beauty of a tropical summer 

 into the frozen heart of winter. 



But aside from this what changes can be produced? In 1884 I 

 started a place under the 100th meridian. I raised evergreens from 

 seed by the thousand and planted thousands more from the Rockies. 

 I found that forty kinds of lilacs did remarkably well and there were 

 twenty kinds of honeysuckles that were a decided success. There was 

 a large family of a dozen kinds of syringas, also flowering almonds, 

 and a large family of hardy roses. There were deciduous trees of forty 

 kinds or more, and a large collection furnished by eastern friends. For 

 some time it was an experiment station connectetl with this Society. 

 It seemed almost an elysium of beauty. Farmers would come from 

 their bleak prairie homes and wander about in astonishment that such 

 changes could be wrought in so short a time. Well, I was obliged to 

 leave and then came three years of drouth, and neglect, and weeds. 

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