3/2 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICUr.'l LKAL SOCIETY. 



There are two kinds of lilacs that are trees, the Japanese and 

 Chinese. I know there was another, the Russian, or Amurensis. 

 I have waited years for it. Last summer I found it in the Bos- 

 ton Arboretum and have the promise of it. These grow about 

 as fast and as large as our natural ash. Glorious June blooms ! 

 Think of avenues of them ! Last year I was invited to write 

 for one of your leading agricultural papers. I prepared an 

 elaborate article on the lilac. I supposed I could write so peo- 

 ple would be interested. I wanted to show what they could do. 

 But there was no room for it. It was crowded out by the hog 

 and the steer. I have simply led you to the border of things; 

 there is a wide world of beauty beyond. 



The time will come — I shall not live to see it, you will — when 

 the farm home shall be beautified and glorified as the finest spot 

 on earth, held in delightful memory by the children who shall 

 go out from it. A blessed retreat for the wearied wife in her 

 declining years ! A fair section of paradise let down to earth ! 

 The world is full of beauty from the fair tropics to the vast 

 tundras of the north. God sowed flowers broadcast. And do 

 you not know that the universe itself is built on the plan of a 

 vast garden of delight? Here our vision is limited. Objects 

 diminish in ratio to distance. When standing on the shores of 

 light up there we come to our own, we shall pass under that arch 

 on which is inscribed the eternal welcome : "AH things are 

 yours." Sometimes we have foreshadowings of the glory to be 

 unveiled. I knew a little girl up in Stearns County who years 

 ago died of diphtheria, and to her rapt vision came a scene 

 of passing loveliness. She had never seen or heard much of 

 flowers only as she had seen them growing wild, but she spoke 

 in rapture and amazement of the fields which rose to her view. 

 She died trying to tell her mother about the flowers she saw. 



Some fourteen years ago I lay on the borders of death 

 through the rheumatic fever. At one timel was near the bor- 

 der. One night I seemed in a land filled with the very aston- 

 ishments of beauty. Rose bushes grew to trees, the size of the 

 monarchs of Yosemite. Overhead broad avenues were arched 

 with a mingling of colors indescribable. Flowers strangers to 

 mortal eyes were unfolding their loveliness everywhere. In a 

 fascination of delight I ran through these realms, and they 

 seemed limitless. No pen could portray the glory of the scene. 

 T was very sick and woke up completely exhausted with my 

 travels in that land of delight. When God planned the universe, 

 He built a vast flower garden. Each star shines with a beautv 



