102 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



town. They went to work and covered this whole space from which 

 they had cut the pine with deciduous trees, and they are now ten to 

 fifteen feet high. 



Mr. J. S. Hartwell, (IlL): I was not expecting to speak on this topic 

 this afternoon, but I have been intensely interested in the discussion. 

 Our friend over here in this corner has hit something of the key note 

 that ought to be sounded a little louder than he sounded it. This 

 Dutchman who has done such wonderful work in his home and 

 community did not gather his information from this or any other 

 society, he gathered it from personal work in his home. 



HORTICULTURE IX THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 



I take it that most people in this world do the best they know how 

 in the average, and, as a rule, those people are absolutely ignorant 

 of the fact that those things would be an addition to their homes. 

 Your society, if I remember rightly, has been in existence thirty and 

 odd years. We have been preaching this same gospel in Illinois 

 for upwards of forty years, and we have had some splendid men to 

 preach it, the Bryants, Douglass and others, and notwithstanding 

 as much as we have done we have as much to do in the older state 

 of Illinois as you have in the same line, and we are still hammering 

 away but apparently making no progress. We have three organiza- 

 tions, called horticultural societies, composed of certain districts, 

 besides the state society, that are hammering away at this same 

 thing. We have these same gray haired men coming in year after 

 year and pegging away at it, and occasionally a young man steps 

 in to fill the ranks, but we do not seem to make any progress. We 

 have a gospel to preach in our stale, and I want to preach it here, 

 although it may be " carrying coal to Newcastle." The only way in 

 which you can make permanent and visible progress along these 

 lines is to put the matter right into your public schools. Start with 

 your children if you want to make any progress. The child in his 

 lesson will learn to love the beauty and poetry of the trees and 

 flowers and will care for them ever afterward. Start this thing in 

 your city schools and in your country schools, and you will find the 

 question eventually solved. 



Mr. C. L. Smith: I think it is well enough to inform Brother Hart- 

 well that we are ahead of Illinois. We are teaching these things in 

 our public shools, and you may go out among the children of the 

 city of Minneapolis, and those who have been from three to five 

 years in the city schools will tell you all about forestry. They are 

 learning all about the trees the}' have planted at different times, and 

 the matter has been carried into the district schools of the country 

 and we are making wonderful progress along these lines. As Mr 

 Owen said, there are more trees in Minnesota than there ever were 

 before. Brother Cook says he had little evergreens sent him some 

 nine or ten years ago as samples. Those samples are all over the 

 state. The reason I mentioned this incident about the German is to 

 show you that our work is bearing fruit. The progress we are mak- 

 ing is shown by the interest taken by the young men, like the secre- 

 tary of the forestry association. Our old and worthy secretary is 

 dead, and some say I ought to be. But we#are getting the boya 



