444 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



sapphires and other jewels of immense value. Along with this 

 was a robe of state embroidered with the most costly stones. That 

 wonderful carpet was an imitation of a flower garden. True, the 

 fabric of woven gems would last the longest ; yet there was only 

 one of it, while a million of people can have carpets of bloom 

 radiant with a thousand forms of loveliness, emitting their fragrance 

 and unfolding their beauty. 



There was the peacock throne of Delhi — a marvelous collec- 

 tion of jewels fashioned into the form of that resplendent bird. It 

 was worth thirty millions of dollars — a magnificent bouquet of 

 splendor. Yet today the quiet woman on intimate terms with 

 earth and nature can have a collection of beauty with tints, pencil- 

 ings and colorings which can vie in appearance with this master- 

 piece of human skill. Let some emperor have his great Mogul or 

 Orloff diamond ; a hundred thousand people can have their splendid 

 Festiva maximus, their La Tulipes, their roses, columbines and 

 dahlias. Men have gone mad over the discovery of precious stones. 

 But there are gems of lustrous beauty in the floral world, gems 

 which do not center all their value in a single object. I stood by 

 the original Concord grape vine in that old historic town from which 

 it takes its name, and said, "You grand old mother, you know 

 not the trainloads after trainloads of luscious fruit and plants which 

 have gone forth from your branches, adding millions to the nation's 

 wealth." The costliest gem ever found in any age or clime would 

 be only a cobblestone compared with that wealth and pleasure 

 giving vine. Gideon discovered another jewel in the Wealthy apple. 

 What a marvel ! No gem ever discovered can have any comparison 

 with it. Go to any of our Western states, and you find fruit enough 

 of this to load whole navies. Somewhere in the unknown are 

 other fruits, hardy, luscious and prolific, which will yet add millions 

 to the nation's wealth. No one can take out a patent on these 

 discoveries. The gates are not locked. You can be an inde- 

 pendent mine owner. And perhaps some quiet farmer may yet 

 capture the prize for the apple for which the great northwest is 

 waiting. 



In floriculture what marvelous changes have been made ! The 

 single rose is the product of nature, the double rose is the product 

 of nature and art. What crosses are all the while being made! 

 One day in the east I rode on the cars with the noted Jackson Daw- 

 son, superintendent of the Arnold Arboretum. He was taking eight 

 hybrid roses to the Massachusetts Horticultural Society. What im- 

 provements in lilacs, spireas and syringas! Some one crossed the 

 delicate little Thunbergi with the Multiflora, and that gave tlie 



