THE NEW HORTICULTURAL BUILDING. 251 



awes into solicitude that we grasp the golden opportunities and do 

 deeds worthy of the day in which we live. 



As citizens, we have seen our country's honor and glory burst 

 forth in meteoric splendor and America take her place among the 

 first in the council of the nations. We have heard the same bugle 

 that called our hosts together sound the last requiem of a lost 

 cause and blow the glad notes of a people reunited in affection as 

 well as in name. We have felt the dark burden of doubt, distrust 

 and panic, that has been so long upon our business enterprises 

 roll away, and again shop and factory, counting room and office are 

 throbbing with the mighty heart-beats of trade. And, best of all, 

 we have seen the gathering earnestness of nations to unlearn the 

 horrid arts of war, and increase and strengthen the bonds that may 

 some day hold us in perpetual peace. 



As agriculturists, we may not hold such brilliant trophies as the 

 soldier and the statesman, but we, whose work it is to fill the hopper 

 and the loom, freight the mighty ships and trains of commerce, and 

 feed the mouths of hungry multitudes, are not unmindful of our 

 more beneficent, if less splendid, victories of peace. After many 

 failures and through many a rough and discouraging way, we have 

 at last begun to learn co operation, and with this first lesson of 

 fraternal good will well learned we have lifted from our wives the 

 opprobrium of " a household drudge" and found a golden market 

 for the product of our herds. 



To diversify your industries a new staple now appears upon the 

 list of northern products. Beet sugar, which for so long a time 

 bafQed the skill of our best efforts to make it with profit, now seems 

 about to take its place among the standard products of our farms. 



Who can repress a thought of wonder as he sees a train of thresh- 

 ing implements, with all the puffs and bustle of the railway locomo- 

 tive, passing along the quiet country highway, up through the 

 stubble field, to the stacks of waiting grain? Where were these 

 noble buildings twenty years ago? Where was agricultural educa- 

 tion twenty years ago? Schools of medicine and law, schools of art 

 and philosophy, and even schools of war existed away back centuries 

 ago, but schools of agriculture, that art upon which all other arts 

 depend, have been left for this present generation to bring to active 

 usefulness. 



When we reckon the trophies of agricultural progress, we will 

 speak of wastes reclaimed, of heavy burdens lifted from aching 

 shoulders, of finer flocks, cleaner fields, better products, better tools, 

 but we will not forget that which holds the surest promise of ad- 

 vancement, — agricultural education. 



As horticulturists we feel ourselves thrice blessed, for in addition 

 to the trophies of the citizen and the agriculturist, in both of which 

 we claim a full and equal share, there are some, peculiar to our art 

 and our fraternity, which we hold with special joy. Chief among 

 these is the orchard of apple and plum which, after the earnest and 

 devoted work of many hands, we can, with confidence offer to the 

 home makers of the north. True, our work in this is not complete 

 and in some points is but just begun; but out of the trials of the 



