WHAT HORT. WILL DO FOR THE MINNESOTA FARMER. 289 



The ideal farm is one where every acre is taxed to its utmost 

 capacity and made to yield Ihe greatest quantity and the finest 

 quality of the particular crop to which it is best adapted, and which 

 shows the greatest net gain — after the land is put into as good con- 

 dition as it was in at the beginning of the year. But this is not all. 

 There must be a charming and attractive home, protected by the 

 most desirable trees from the winter's storm and summer's heat. It 

 must have its orchard, its small fruits, its vegetable and its flower 

 garden, its lawns and hedgerows, its singing birds, its running 

 stream, its cozy nooks and shady walks, and comfortable shelter for 

 the animals used upon it. No one has ever had everything to his 

 taste. Perfection has never been attained. If one could, by any 

 possibility reach it, there would be nothing left to live and hope for, 

 except to be of benefit to others not situated like himself — but with 

 them he would necessarily be out of S5'mpathy, and the baptism 

 before spoken of could not bring him into that close communion 

 essential to a thorough enjoyment of the work. 



Horticulture and agriculture should march together, hand in 

 hand, as neither is complete bj^ itself, and each furnishes what the 

 other lacks. The one aims, after driving the wolf from the door, to 

 increase the material wealth of the individual and, incidentally, of 

 the state; the other cultivates the moral and aesthetic faculties; 

 it sees in the various vegetables, plants, shrubs, fruits and flowers, 

 with which it artistically surrounds the home, something more than 

 the hard cash which the annual products will bring when exposed 

 for sale in the public market. The necessities of life being provided 

 for, the true horticulturist sees more of real value in the beauty, the 

 poetry, the sweetness, the unalloyed pleasure springing up around 

 him in answer to the touch of his hand and the execution of his 

 well laid plans, than in a bonanza farm with forty hired men, a score 

 of teams, a train load of wheat and all the concomitant hurry, 

 bustle, confusion, doubt, anxiety and wear and tear of conscience, 

 which cannot be escaped. The farmer who works for profit alone, 

 and reckons that profit in dollars and cents exclusively, may be in- 

 dependent as the czar, but that very independence, coupled with his 

 hard enviroments, tends to develop hardness, asperity and rudeness 

 in his character. Though in the midst of nature, her charms pass 

 unnoticed. Contemplating a beautiful tree, he sees only the spind- 

 ling corn beneath its shadow and a cord of wood in its trunk and 

 branches; so the ax is laid to its root, and the next year's crop is 

 larger, the kitchen fire is warmer, and the heart of the farmer is 

 colder and more callous. His bank credit is five dollars higher, his 

 culture and refinement appear five degrees lower, and bis farm is 

 worth $25.00 less to the average buyer. To the man whose energies are 

 directed solely toward securing as large an annual money income 

 as circumstances will permit, culture is naught, beauty is naught, 

 the milk of human kindness is naught, the love of nature is naught. 



" A primrose by the river's brim 

 A yellow primrose is to him, 

 And it is nothing more." 



