360 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



thing for beauty and improvement. You, in the West, have not been as 

 much troubled as we with unsightly fences, and we have had to do more 

 grading, but, nevertheless, you have many opportunities and chances for 

 development and planting. One of the things I beg every horticulturist 

 in Indiana to do is to beautify the home grounds. Get rid of the un- 

 sightly farm devilment that is almost always in the bacli yard, and 

 sometimes in the front yard, and have in its place large beds of beautiful 

 flowers. The beds should be generous, not those little beds the women 

 of the family have to dig up themselves Avith a trowel, but large, generous 

 beds. Plant in them the common l^ind of flowers, and have quantities 

 of them, so that all through the growing season you can have them by 

 the bushel, not only to adorn your own home, but to give to every tramp 

 and traveler that comes along. You will bless them and bless youi'- 

 selves by doing this. 



Now, I don't know where Barnes would have gone on from this 

 point if he had been here. 



Member: He would have followed the white cow. 



Ml-. Hale: That reminds me of another story. A lot of people living 

 up in a block got into a row. It was one of those general family rows, 

 and it got into court. An old Irish lady was testifying, and whenever 

 they asked her a question she would begin and tell of all the 

 troubles and quarrels that had occurred in the past two years. Finally 

 the lawyer said: "Madam, we don't want any more of this. We want 

 you to give us definite answers. We want you to say 'Yes' or 'No,' as the 

 case may be. What the court wants to do is to locate the stairs in that 

 house. lu what direction do those stairs run?" "Well, yer Honoi'," she 

 said, "if they are going to pin me down so close as that, I will just say, 

 when I am downstairs they luii up. and when I am upstairs they run 

 down." That's the way with me. 



I am a believer in the possil)ilitics of horticulture in America as a 

 pleasurable life and a profitable life. I further have a reasonable 

 degree of common sense in some things— not in all; at least Mrs. Hale 

 says so— and I believe a man or woman should l)e all the time engaged 

 in some business that is pleasurable. I do not believe that a man or 

 a woman should get up every morning and go to work that is a drudgery. 

 Of course, stern duty will at times compel us to put our shoulders to the 

 wheel and do our work wherever we find it; but, so far as possible, every 

 man and every woman should do work that is pleasurable. And if we 

 live on farms we can make our work pleasurable. Is not the farm where 

 most of us go at last for pleasure? Did you ever hear of a man turning 

 doctor, proaehor or lawyer for fun? I never did. Did you ever hear of 

 a man who liad broken doAvn his health by overwork taking up any of 

 those trades? I never did. Did you ever hear of a man who had made 



