852 



HORTICULTURE 



December 28, 1907 



ORNAMENTALS. 



A paper prepared for the Nebraska Horti- 

 cultural Society, by C. S. Harrison, 

 Yorli, Neb. 



God loves the ornamental, for He 

 has given the world and the whole uni- 

 verse so much of it. Infinite skill, art 

 and taste have been lavished on Our 

 grand old earth. It swings through 

 the heavens lil.e a bride adorned with 

 a wealth of grandeur and beauty. He 

 paints on the gates of the morning 

 those dissolving tints which vanish in- 

 to light. At evening, moving moun- 

 tains of earth's choicest gems in their 

 mingled beauty escort the retiring day. 

 How glorious the night when the great 

 dome, frescoed with blue, is sprinkled 

 ■with stars, making a scene so resplen- 

 dent it touches the soul, giving a di- 

 vine awaking and enlargement — show- 

 ing that it is related to the infinite. 

 What august sublimity crowns the 

 mountain — the coronal of white upon 

 the hoary brow, the play of shadow 

 and light, the blue above where float 

 the fleecy clouds, all give us inspira- 

 tion. When you let God alone and do 

 not mar His works, what a beautiful 

 land he gives us. 



Before the white man touched our 

 shores, He spread out a pano- 

 rama of resplendent loveliness. There 

 were vast forests of majestic trees, 

 great rivers fed by unfailing streams 

 were flowing to the sea, sparkling 

 brooks were dancing gaily in the sun- 

 light, charming lakes fringed with ver- 

 dure and flowers were flashing their 

 beauty like diamonds on the bosom 

 of the fair mother earth, stretching 

 out to the distant horizons were vast 

 prairies whose emerald green melted 

 into the sapphire of the sky, and there 

 were flowers, flowers everywhere. 

 God loved them so He filled the world 

 with them all the way from the sunny 

 tropics to the vast tundras of the 

 Arctic. He makes winter glorious. 

 In the cold North, at evening time. 

 there is the most gorgeous display of 

 which we can have any conception, 

 when the curtains of the Aurora Bore- 

 alis, flashing as with the coloring of 

 the most sparkling gems, burn and 

 glow, vanish and come again, lighting 

 up all the clear heavens with en- 

 trancing splendors as if great moving 

 pictures from the very heavens were 

 controlled by the unseen hands of 

 angels. 



When it comes to fruits, God might 

 have given them the sombre color of 

 the cobble-stones — but no. One of 

 the finest pictures on earth, the or- 

 chard in autumn with its great luscious 

 burdens strapped up in envelopes of 

 red and gold. The cherry tree is 

 made beautiful — a bouquet of white in 

 early spring and later you see the 

 mingling of the red with the green — 

 one of nature's fairest pictures. The 

 strawberry— God's climax — is more 

 valuable because of its superlative 

 beauty. Fruits are not ready for de- 

 livery until they have their wrappings 

 done up in colorings no artist can re- 

 produce. 



How endless the varieties of the 

 trees with their different forms and 

 foliage. Sometimes there are those 

 of golden and purple tints, contrasting 

 so well with the green of others. 

 Then in the autumn, forest and moun- 



tain are vast foliage gardens — nature 

 holding a carnival of color before en- 

 tering the solemn lent of winter. 



What a family of shrubs He has 

 given us. One hundred and fifty kinds 

 of lilacs, with the power to produce 

 more till we may run them into the 

 thousands. These stretch the time of 

 blooming from early spring till the 

 first of July. In the West, we have 

 not the full assortment of shrubs for 

 our trying climate which they have 

 in the moister and milder climate of 

 the East, and yet. we have the power 

 and skill for producing more. Our 

 own "Wizai'd of the North," Profes- 

 sor Hansen, has brought out of the 

 unknown a cross of Prumus Pis- 

 sardi and Besseyii, one of the most 

 beautiful shrubs I ever saw, symme- 

 trical in form, with foliage of deepest 

 crimson purple. Back in the unknown 

 land there are other forms of loveli- 

 ness which we trust his skill will drag 

 forth to light. 



The charming family of the Phila- 

 delphus or Syringas is a numerous one, 

 and new types are being constantly 

 added; so with the spireas and there 

 are the viburnums and other shrubs 

 which are all the while being improved. 

 When we come to flowers, we are ia 

 a land filled with the very fascinations 

 and astonishments of loveliness. The 

 rose, the peony, the phlox, the canna, 

 and the dahlia with hosts of perennials 

 show the love of the beautiful on the 

 part of the Creator. But this is not 

 all; the native flowers are but the be- 

 ginning of things. They are mostly 

 single. He gives man the skill 

 to make them double and to in- 

 crease their beauty manifold. There 

 is kindly Nature, daughter of God, 

 her head white with the snows of the 

 millenniums, and yet, on her tresses are 

 the glintings of the sunlight of eternal 

 youth with each recurrent spring time. 

 She is ever old and ever young, and 

 yet, into the inner temple of her Holy 

 of Holies, she permits us to go where 

 she opens before us new pages of 

 mystery and permits us to work mira- 

 cles with her. What stupendous 

 changes have been made with the 

 phlox, the peony, the dahlia, and car- 

 nation, so marked, so divergent from 

 the parent source their own mother 

 would not know them. Yes, back in 

 that unknown are reserves of beauty 

 human eye hath not yet seen, waiting 

 to be revealed so that the things we 

 have already seen are only prophetic 

 of further revelation. 



Such men as Burbank, Hansen, Pat- 

 ten, and many others are high priests 

 of Nature, commissioned of God to 

 carry out his plans as well as the 

 Gospel minister, the statesman, and 

 the patriot. 



The world's unused capital of the 

 useful and beautiful is something stu- 

 pendous. Providence stands at the 

 door and knocks. In His arms are not 

 only spiritual gifts but also material 

 blessings of amazing value. One hun- 

 dred and fifty years ago, there were 

 undiscovered continent's of power^ 

 steam, oil, and electricity — all unused. 

 The most potent sources of corporate 

 wealth are from these recently ac- 

 quired materials. God helps men and 

 women to invade the undiscovered con- 

 tinents of beauty and uncover riches 

 greater than those of Golconda. 

 When a carnation sells for $30,000, 



and that is but its beginning, when a 

 Pestiva Maxima grows to be worth 

 $100,000, when other floral gems reach 

 such high value, then it pays to explore 

 that unknown land. Why, just think 

 of it! All around our horizons are 

 vast armies waiting for you to open 

 the gates and let them in, forests to 

 clothe the waste places of the farm, to 

 pump gold for you from the mud, ever- 

 greens for steep hillsides, trees of rare 

 symmetry and loveliness for your 

 lawns, shrubs with blooms of red, pink, 

 and snow, flowers in great masses 

 clothed in fairer robes than ever were 

 worn in palaces of kings. 



I need not tell you of the beauty and 

 of the grandeur beyond where the fur- 

 rows in the fields of azure are blazing 

 with stars in the limitless flower gar- 

 dens of God. The brightest gems 

 of earth are only the alphabet 

 with w'hich we read the splen- 

 dors of the garments of the suns. 

 We are living in the margin of all 

 that splendor and this borderland 

 which touches it should have some 

 forecasting of the glory to be revealed, 

 so take what is yours — the wealth of 

 the forest, the tree, the shrub, and the 

 flower and fruit. 



Man's stinginess and narrowness are 

 insults to the Divine bounty. Man 

 builds a mansion, or simply a comfort- 

 able dwelling and fills it with costly 

 furniture, but when he goes into "God's 

 great out-of-doors" a wave of poverty 

 strikes and almost paralyses him. A 

 ten-cent flower or a twenty-five cent 

 tree is all he can afford. Think of put- 

 ting a $3,000 picture in a fifty-cent 

 frame. The moment he moves into 

 his house and occupies his furniture, 

 both begin to depreciate and soon be- 

 come second-hand goods, but let him 

 fill that yard with the most delightful 

 trees, shrubs and flowers which money 

 can buy; let him plant in masses as 

 God does and the moment they leave 

 his hands, they begin to increase in 

 value. We reiterate, "Beauty Is 

 wealth," so raise plenty of it and 

 glorify the home. 



Do some home missionary work for 

 yourself in the evangel of beauty. You 

 need it badly enough. Do something 

 for your neighbors. You can not live 

 down here long, at best, but leave a 

 worthy trail behind you to let people 

 know you passed this way. 



A single farm, put to its best, would 

 be a Mecca for pilgrims in search of 

 the beautiful. A whole section of rich . 

 prairie would be like a section of para- 

 dise let down to earth. A whole town- 

 ship improved as it might be, would 

 make earth so attractive that the best 

 Christian would be willing to stay out 

 of heaven awhile to enjoy it. Such 

 surroundings would lengthen lite and 

 prolong a stay on earth. Home would 

 be a delightful memory to children in 

 after years. If a man wanted a vaca- 

 tion, he could go over to the next sec- 

 tion and lose himself in the delights of 

 an earthly elysium. Such improve- 

 ments would lift a man out of the hog- 

 and-hominy range into a higher life. 



Cattle, horses, hogs, corn, and wheat 

 are all right in themselves. They have 

 given you competence so you can now 

 fix up and you will find that there are 

 other things fully as attractive and 

 beautiful as the hog, and yet, what 

 farmer gives that front yard as much 

 attention as he does his pig-pen? 



