470 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



white pond lily, in another the pink lily, and in the third other choice 

 aquatic plants. The little boy, who was the only member of the 

 family at home w^hen we called, told us that the yard represented 

 the result of the combined interest and labor of them all, father, 

 mother and child. Everything about the place was in perfect order 

 and all spotlessly clean. 



The other place, as before mentioned, was also a single lot. The 

 occupants had been there four years ; father, mother and daughters 

 all worked in the garden. The little front yard was shady — too 

 shady for flowers, but a long bed of maidenhair and other ferns 

 that stretched the full length of the porch caused us to linger a long 

 time to enjoy the beauty of what seemed like a bit of the heart of 

 the forest. At the side, as an enclosure, was a hedge of arbor vitae, 

 between which and the house were the flower beds. Mrs. Keyes 

 counted twenty-seven varieties of flowers. There were varieties 

 there that we had never before seen, the seeds and slips from which 

 they had grown having been brought from the old home in Germany. 

 There were, besides these rare varieties, all the varieties of familiar 

 annuals. The back yard was divided into two parts : on the right 

 hand was the vegetable garden, which had produced in rotation of 

 crops all of the vegetables the family had required during the sum- 

 mer with the exception of potatoes, and there was a surplus for 

 winter storage. On the left hand was the fruit. In the center a 

 strawberry bed, from which they had gathered during this one sea- 

 son sixty quarts of strawberries. On each side of the square and at 

 each end was a row of small fruits — gooseberries as large and fine as 

 those raised in California ; currants large and perfect, like the Cali- 

 fornia varieties ; raspberries and blackberries completed the list. 



Some one in our party inquired how they managed to protect 

 their fruit from trespassers, boys especially. The answer was : 

 "The boys never touch anything. They often come to the fence and 

 ask questions about the culture of the different things, but they never 

 bother us. They seem to respect us and our garden." 



I have avoided the use of names, but we have the names and 

 addresses of all whose gardens we visited — all mentioned in this 

 paper and many more. 



I wish I had the power to impart to you an idea of the feeling 

 of reverence aroused in the members of our committee by our visits 

 to some of these homes. One member with head bowed and tears in 

 her eyes said, "I feel — oh, I can't tell you how I feel ! Just as I 

 do in church sometimes !" — a feeling shared by the other members 

 and akin to that experienced in the presence of the sublime in nature 

 or when up on a mountain height we catch a glimpse of something 

 fathomless bevond. 



