418 ‘MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
ful red, sweet apples for eating, baking and boiling, the delight of 
my mother; the paring of the same at apple bees for two rosy faced, 
noble girls to quarter and core, as I was and am considered an ex- 
pert apple parer, having no use for modern machine apple parers 
and corers. D 
On settling in Bremer county, lowa, near Waverly, among my im- 
mediate, continued and most highly prized friends were the 
brothers B. M. and N. A. Reeves, who were considered horticultural 
cranks of the first water in general society. At my new home [ 
found over fifty bearing fruit trees, within a few years followed by 
- the setting out of 125 more, with several thousand evergreens and 
European Larches from nursery size,a few inches, to ten feet in 
height. The larger ones were set out by N. A. Reeves, whose son is 
a prosperous nurseryman in Waverly. That farm, only less in ex- 
tent, reminds me of your beautiful “Evergreen Farm,” near this city, 
owned by Mr. Ellis. 
One of the great trials of my life was the real or supposed neces- 
sity of leaving that dear home, after thirteen anda half years of 
hard labor, because of ill health of members of the family, for what 
seemed afterwards a “wild goose” trip to Florida, with all its ac- 
quired and natural beauties of a horticultural nature. 
Permit me in my desultory remarks toconsider horticulture in its 
wide significance, as including gardening in general, fruit culture, 
tree culture for profit and shelter, landscape gardening on our 
home premises, in parks and cemeteries, floriculture, frequently, 
necessarily trenching on agriculture at large. The subject as- 
signed me appears on the program as “ Moral Influence of Horticui- 
ture,” in aletter from our secretary, “The Moral and Educational In- 
fluence of Horticulture on Society,” and in my own mind as the 
“Tnfluence of Horticulture on Character.” Hence the field covered 
by the topics is wide enough for a clever man to follow in the foot- 
steps of some of our ancestors by giving an address three hours 
long. 
Permit me to refer toa few facts from both sacred and profane 
history. In the Bible among many references we find the following: 
“And God said, ‘Behold I have given you every herb bearing seed, 
which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree in the which is 
the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to youit shall befor meat.’” “And the 
Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there he put the 
man whom he had formed. And out of the ground made the Lord 
Godto grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight,and good for food: 
the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of 
knowledge of good and evil.” ‘‘And the Lord God took the manand 
put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.” 
“ When Jesus had spoken these words he went forth with his dis- 
ciples over the brook Cedron, where was a garden into the which he 
entered, and his disciples. And Judas also, which betrayed him, 
knew the place: for Jesus oftimes resorted thither with his disciples.” 
“In the place were he was crucified there was a garden and in the 
garden a new sepulcher, wherein was never man yet laid.” 
