STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 123 



pation, and one that if rijjhtly followed is almost certain to bring 

 a reasonable share of success, as well as being useful to the com- 

 munity in which you reside. Tome there is an unending pleasure 

 in planting the little seeds in the well prepared soil, and then 

 watching them from their first show of life to the final harvest of 

 the crops. As I watch the growing plants the question comes 

 again and again why has the little inanimate seed sprouted any 

 more than a pebble would if put in its place. Yet each as it grows 

 is true to its kind. Watch them as closely as you will and you 

 will never find the tiny celery seed changing to a cabbiige, nor the 

 cabbage to a cauliflower. 



The bet't has not changed to a carrot, nor a parsnip. The 

 tomato will not bring forth a strawberry, nor the strawberry a 

 currant, nor the currant a raspberry, and so on through the entire 

 list ; each one, true to the laws of its own being, and true to the 

 laws of the Great Creator who made them and rules over all. 



I have said nothing of strawberry cultivation because my views 

 were given here about one year since, and another year's experi- 

 ence has made very little change in them upon that subject. 



My friends, I know of no business in which I could, if again a 

 young man, enter into with more zeal and enthusiasm than my 

 my present one. It has not made me, nor will it make you 

 a Vanderbilt or a Jay Gould ; or a millionaire of any other kind. 

 But it has made me a nice living, a comfortable and happy 

 home, with every prospect of all that we may need in our old age, 

 should wife and myself live to see it. I believe it will do the same 

 for you. 



Years hence it may perhaps be said of sc me of our bonanza 

 farmers in the Northwest, "he has made a very large fortune 

 from the farm, but he has impoverished a whole township of land 

 to do it." Let no such thing be said of you, but rather as they 

 stand around your newly made grave, may they say, "He did his 

 work well. There is one little spot upon the earth that is much 

 better for his having lived upon it. And all about and around it, 

 are the homes of those whom he taught to so cultivate that their 

 places are the better, and more valuable, and their homes the hap- 

 pier because he lived near them." 



Col. Stevens. Mr. President, that is the best paper on the sub- 

 ject of market gardening that I ever heard read, and I move that 

 we extend a vote of thanks for it to President Smith, and that he 

 be declared an honorary life member of this society. 



Motion unanimously adopted. 



