486 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



world, worth about $1,000,000, but with not so many members as this, 

 and I thought that was a good society to which to belong. Then I 

 came up here last year to visit your society. There is a kind of won- 

 derful hypnotism about you, friends. You throw your spell about a 

 man so that he becomes almost helpless. I then made up my mind that 

 I would be one of you, and I did become one of you, and I am very 

 glad of it. I am getting along in years. You celebrated my seventy- 

 second birthday on Thanksgiving day, and I am very much obliged 

 to you : I hope you had a good time. My friends at home honored 

 me equally. Some men will bear watching, others will not. My 

 friends thought I belonged to the former class, and so they 

 "watched" me with a fine railroad watch, the finest and best that 

 money could buy. (Exhibiting watch.) I was not sorry that I was 

 seventy-two years old. 



Now then, our honored president has outlined in a measure the 

 great need of this society in a forward movement for home adorn- 

 ment. In a very short time there will be a publication issued by the 

 Webb Publishing Company on the subject of "A Gold Mine in the 

 Front Yard and How to Work it." That is the most important 

 thing. The most important part of the farm has been neglected. The 

 richest corner lies in the front yard or very near it. I am going to 

 read you the second chapter of that publication, and I am not doing 

 it for the sake of helping out Brother Webb, because he is able to 

 take care of himself, but I am going to do it for your sake. So I will 

 present this morning as my subject "Possibilities in Floriculture," 

 and along this line of gold mining in the front yard I will tell you 

 of a "Hunt for Gems." 



Mr. C. S. Harrison of York, Neb., then read a paper entitled, 

 "Possibilities in Floriculture." (See index.) 



The President : The next number on our program should be 

 of interest to all of us, since we are all interested in experiments, and 

 Mr. Bacheller will tell us something about garden experiments.. 



Mr. T. T. Bacheller : You need have no fear that 1 shall follow 

 the pace set by my predecessor. I just want to tell you of a little 

 incident that will further associate Mr. Harrison's name in my 

 memory. I sat in my house last Sunday afternoon watching the 

 setting of the sun, and I do not know whether it was just a coinci- 

 dence, but I almost immediately thought of Mr. Harrison. My 

 family was present, and I said to them, "I v/ant to read to you a little 

 from Mr. Harrison's address of last year." I got the copy of the 

 magazine containing his address and commenced to read. I came 

 to the place where he painted a word picture of the setting of the 

 sun. Just then I looked out of the window, — and as I am on the 

 north side of the lake I could look across two and a half miles to 

 the west, — and the sun was just about to set. The beauty of the 

 colors I could not attempt to paint, but I think with his word 

 painting Mr. Harrison could have done it. I said to my family, "I 

 will stop right here, and I wonder if a pamter could do justice to 

 that scene." The sun was just dipping down behind the horizon, and 

 it seemed as though there was a blue background behind it. Just 

 then my oldest boy went up stairs to change his clothes to do his 



