210 



MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



stead of flowers, shrubs and vegetables, bare ground and foot- 

 worn ruts instead of green lawns and gravel paths, and broken 

 and unpainted fences instead of well trimmed hedges or blossom- 

 ing screens. 



How often in the country, too, we find that though the fields 

 are decked in beauty the home is surrounded by weeds and filth 

 combined. We should 

 find some means to im- 

 prove this state of things. 

 Though horticultural 

 societies were only start- 

 ed in the first decade of 

 the last century, yet 

 thirty years had not 

 elapsed before they had 

 started flower and vege- 

 table shows in nearly 

 every village in England, 

 the poorer inhal)itants 

 competing for the prizes 

 donated by tliose of _______™___ 



wealth and all taking an 

 interest in the annual 

 display. All who have 

 visited English villages 

 have been impressed 

 with the beauty of the 

 scenes and the fragrance 

 — if in summer — of the 

 flowers and shrul)S, yet 

 w i t h o u t these adorn- 

 ments a British village 

 is usually an unsightly 

 spectacle . Annually 

 every village has its 

 horticultural show, and 

 prizes are given for the 

 })est kept grounds as well as the best products. The little plot 

 around each cottage and house, however small that plot may be, 

 is decked with flowers and, where there is room, with lawn or 

 vegetables, giving an aspect of beauty, profit and cleanliness. 



In Minnesota we may have to use other means on account of 

 the different circumstances, but we should early set to work as 



Glimpses of Home Grounds of Alfred Terry. 



