464 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 



assurance that when they have been trained in right ways they will 

 cling to them just as tenaciously. 



Among- those exhibiting- this conservatism in a high degree is the 

 farmer, some politicians and newspapers of the past campaign to 

 the contrary notwithstanding. If the Kansas farmer is trying to 

 get the start of somebody in the manipulation of money, go back 

 and see if he is not trying to apply principles practiced on him in 

 the earlier history of his state. 



The spread of the co-operative creamery in Freeborn county is an 

 example. Some seven years ago the first one was established. The 

 plan was right, the management good, the venture a success. With 

 their milk, the farmers drove to this creamery day after day, saw its 

 work, and felt the cash at the end of the month. They talked to 

 their neighbors about it. So from this nucleus and on this basis the 

 creamery became a habit, the county now having twen+y-nine organ- 

 izations and being the leading dairy county of the state. 



In a similar way Freeborn county has a nucleus from which the 

 fruit tree is spreading, and the apple tree becoming an essential 

 part of the home life on each of its farms. At first only an "Echo," 

 it has expanded till it takes in the whole " Northwest." 



What has all this to do with the State Horticultural Society and 

 the district school? It has much. It suggests an opportunity. Grow 

 horticulture into the child life of the state; make it a part of his 

 early exi8tence,and he will never think of being without it. A force 

 is already at work in the gardens, orchards and nurseries of the 

 enthusiastic members of this society. 



The next place to strike is in the district school, and the society 

 to make that strike is the State Horticultural Society, We seek to 

 make patriotistn a part of the child's life by patriotic songs and 

 selections, and by floating the flag every day of the term. I am not 

 sure that a more patriotic and a more useful citizen would not be 

 produced by devoting the same energy to giving the child some 

 knowledge of and, hence, a love for plant life, and by teaching him 

 the elements of horticulture. 



Who ever heard of a tramp horticulturist? 



A little landscape gardening might come in. The civilizing- 

 efifects of a cleanly mowed and neatly kept school yard can not be 

 over estimated. The comparison day by day with the home yard 

 must reach to the improvenaent of the latter. 



We have our arbor day, let us begin lower and have our grass 

 cropping season. If each member of this society will single out 

 his own school district on which to begin operations, astonishing 

 results may be accomplished. 



Before systematic work can be taken up satisfactorily in the daily 

 school program, the elements of botany ought to be made one of 

 the requirements of teachers' first, second and third grade certifi- 

 cates. I know of no organization better equipped to push this 

 matter or that would do it with more vigor, than the State Horticul- 

 tural Society. Meantime some good books on vegetable gardening- 

 and fruit growing should be selected and recommended for supple- 

 mentary reading and for the libraries of these schools. Who could 



