212 NEBRASKA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



the meeting of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society. Only one 

 man could name it. It was the Viburnum tomentosum of Japan. A 

 single flowering snowball. What a furor it awakened. One horti- 

 culturist got a chance to cut off the twigs and he set his greenhouse at 

 work striking cuttings. One got on the track of some in Europe and 

 bought them all. I saw them growing and iielped cut some for the 

 greenhouse propagation. Then I thought of the future of the plant. 

 Somebody would get seedlings from it, which would if possible be an 

 improvement, and this would go on and on. Our French and Ger- 

 man horticulturists are hard at work improving the beauty of the 

 world, and some of our own propagators are doing wonders. Jack- 

 son Dawson put a trailing juniper on a red cedar and made an ever- 

 green umbrella and sold it for $50. There is money in brains, and 

 earth has a broader range than cattle, hogs, and hominy. 



There is no science on earth which brings in such marvelous re- 

 turns. Fertile brains and deft hands are sure of a reward. The high 

 priest of nature has wonderful advantages. He goes into a new land 

 and to him is given the eye of prophecy. He sees in the earth and 

 air, in the sun and shower, millions on millions of bushels of luscious 

 apples, pears, plums, cherries, grapes, and berries. He plants the 

 trees, shrubs, and vines, and, too, the crystallization of all this unseen 

 wealth. Around him in the viewless air and in the furrows are arches 

 of beauty, marvelous in fullness and fragrance. He has only to phint 

 the bushes and the bulbs and they rise before him like children of the 

 light. 



The multiplication of species and varieties is something marvelous. 

 The facility of propagation almost surpasses belief. The stock-grower 

 pushes his show animals till they can go no further. They are the 

 last of their race. The horticulturist pushes his products till he has 

 the seedless grape and pear and orange wonderful in beauty, and so 

 with flowers. Many of the most lovely are sterile, yet by budding 

 and grafting the process goes on with wonderful rajndity. Dr. Bull, 

 of Concord, died only last year, but the old Concord vine is yet alive 

 and thriving in his garden. But who can estimate the vast train loads 

 of vines and fruits which have come from that parent vine. It al- 

 most passes belief. Why if the progeny, vine and fruit, were piled 

 up by the pound it would be a vast mountain. 



Ages ago there grew a beautiful shrub in Abyssinia; thence it was 



