212 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
practical value of trees and shrubs about the home. A few weeks 
ago, with one of our men to help me, I put into winter quarters a 
number of tubs of water lilies. I made some remark about them, 
and the man said they were pretty to look at but of not much practi- 
cal value. I said, what do you do with your money? Is not the 
most we can do with our money to make people happy? That is 
what these water lilies help to do, make some one happy. It seems 
to me that is the right way to look at it. We may dig gold or 
raise potatoes, corn or apples, but the end of it all is to make our- 
selves happy. Perhaps that comes indirectly from making some 
one else happy. Some years ago we had a farmers’ meeting at our 
place, while mother and father were still alive, an annual festival 
where a number of city folks also gathered together, and the roses 
were simply a mass of bloom. We had not gathered them for a 
few days because we wanted to keep them for that particular oc- 
casion, and at night when the company went away you could hardly 
pick a button-hole bouquet. I said to mother, “We seem never to 
have gotten so much out of our flowers as we did today.” There 
was a company of perhaps two hundred pecple on the place, and 
when they went away there was a large number of them that had 
either a bunch of roses or something else that might be in bloom 
at that time. It was a pleasure to them to take those flowers home, 
and it was a continual joy to them to look back upon that occasion. 
We should not look upon everything as simply producing so much 
money. We cannot eat money; if we did not have a place to spend 
money it would be as worthless as so much sand. (Applause.) 
The President: What Mr. Smith says reminds me of an in- 
cident that happened in Montana. A few years ago a friend of 
mine, in fact, an old student of mine, went out there and engaged 
in the cattle business, owning a large cattle ranch. One day a 
buffalo cow and calf became separated from the herd and mixed 
with his herd of cattle. He was very anxious to secure that cow 
and calf, and he got all his men out with their lassos trying to lasso 
the cow and bring her into his corral. After a while he gave it up, 
she would tear away and unhorse the cow boys, and they could do 
nothing with her. They gavesup trying to bring in the cow, but he 
told his men if they could not get the cow they should make sure of 
the calf. They had but little difficulty in lassoing the calf and 
bringing it into the corral, and when he went into the gate the cow 
went in beside him. That is to show what Mr. Smith was speaking 
about, a great many things can be brought about indirectly when 
it is impossible to bring them about directly. A great many cases 
I have noticed in my life were just like this, showing that the great 
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