THE PRESIDENTS GREETING. 443 



die in the harness, and we never shall find a better place. There 

 can be no better position in which men can meet the great adver- 

 sary than doing some good in the world, or letting some sweetness 

 and light shine in where there was so little before. There is no 

 danger of doing too much, no danger of overproduction. Just 

 think how the demand has increased continually throughout the 

 country, more rapidly in proportion than the supply has increased, 

 and the supply has increased to almost marvelous proportions ; but 

 it is like getting money, every one that has any wants a little more, 

 and so every one that has had a taste of good things wants a little 

 more. He knows that fruit is one of the best articles of food that 

 he can get to keep him in a good healthy physical state, and it is 

 not bad to take. Some refuse to take the bitter pills that the doctor 

 deals out, but this is a better medicine that we all like. 



In addition to planting trees for use in a mercantile way we 

 should do something in the way of planting trees for ornament and 

 beauty. Lawns and fruits and trees and flowers change the wilder- 

 ness to a garden. Improve the home, improve the school house and 

 its surroundings, improve the last home that we shall visit. Take 

 pains with the cemetery and do not let that remain as repulsive as a 

 great many we have seen in our younger days. I am glad to see that 

 the people of today are paying more attention to this side of life. 

 Let us do this, and success is assured. We have made no great flour- 

 ish of drums and trumpets. We have not been like the boatman on 

 the Mississippi river who built a boat in which he placed a twenty 

 horse power boiler and a forty-horse power whistle, and every time 

 he blew the whistle he blew off so much steam that he had to run 

 into the nearest bank and tie up for two or three hours until he could 

 get up enough steam to go on again. We have done nothing of the 

 kind, but we have pursued the even tenor of our ways, and the 

 work we have done must speak for us. 



We have got a long, hard week's work before us, or what would 

 be a hard week's work if there was nothing good connected with it. 

 No matter how hard we work, if we see something from that work, 

 every hour something gained, the work will be easy. Let us keep 

 on. It is 



" * * idleness that always faileth, 

 Idleness always despaireth, bewaileth. 

 Then work, work, for the dark rust assaileth, 

 Flowers droop and die in the stillness of noon." 



