366 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



OUR UNUSED CAPITAL. 



C. S. HARRISON, YORK, NEB. 



A large percentage of the wealth of today comes from sources 

 of which little was known one hundred years ago. Then the 

 vast fields of coal were undeveloped, steam but little used, oil 

 was undiscovered and the power of electricity unknown. The 

 Bessemer process brought steel from $500 per ton down to $20. 

 Now, all these things had been in existence from time imme- 

 morial ; their development has made thousands of millionaires. 

 Great possibilities yet lie along the margin of the unknown. 



We have not yet gotten through with our discoveries in hor- 

 ticulture or floriculture ; we have only touched the edge of an 

 unexplored continent. Much has been done, and there is more 

 to follow. We are millionaires and don't know it ; we often 

 keep poor in the midst of plenty. When the farmer goes over 

 his land, too often it is a tramp over an unknown country — he 

 does not know its possibilities. He is content to have full corn- 

 cribs, granaries and barns, and ignores those attractions of 

 beauty and comfort which are his if he would reach out and 

 take them. The farm lies on the borders of immensity. The 

 owner can draw out limitless supplies. No farmer on earth has 

 yet reached his limit or used up all his capital. He has only 

 seen the borders of his vast possessions. 



Members of the Minnesota Horticultural Society, you have 

 the best society probably on this earth ! You are beginning to 

 get hold of your possessions. You are realizing something of 

 your rights and possibilities. In prophetic vision you saw mil- 

 lions of bushels of luscious fruits held in solution in the earth 

 and air, in shower and sunbeam. You planted trees on v/hich these 

 floating elements could crystalize or materialize. You have 

 learned to grab your own without taking that which belongs 

 to others — there is no robbers' graft in the graft of the nursery- 

 man. Your calling lies next to nature and to God. Our first 

 parents were horticulturists, put in the Garden to dress it and 

 keep it. 



He Avho came to restore the wreck of the fallen was a prac- 

 •tical horticulturist also. Human language never encased a fairer 

 gem than this beautiful unmetered poem, "Behold the lilies, how 

 they grow !" 



The man who goes into the inner temple of nature and helps 

 her work her miracles is honored among men. It is a devout 

 work. "The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him, 



