STATE HORTICULTUKAL SOCIETY. 6S 



from experience. Benjamin Franklin said : " Experience keeps a dear 

 school, but fools will learn in no other." The school of experience to 

 many of us has been a very dear one, and want of system has been to 

 many nearly as expensive. There is nothing that I regret more than 

 the habit I have fallen into of doing ray work in an unsystem- 

 atic way; the older I grow, the more I see the necessity of having 

 some fixed purpose in all classes of work, and systematic rules to 

 follow. 



Every young person should be taught that there should be a place 

 for everything and everything in its place; also that there should be 

 a rule established for doing all classes of work, and it sJiould be done 

 according to the rule as near as possible. Tt is the unsystematic way 

 we have of going through life that causes us so much waste of time 

 and so many of our failures. 



This is not all; many of us have acquired the habit of using up a 

 great amount of time unprofitably. There is a quotation like this: 

 "As every thread of gold is valuable, so is every minute of time." 

 Idleness is the thief of time, and if we should make use of each 

 moment with the mind directed to some particular object, how much 

 more would we accomplish. Show me a man that has methodical, 

 systematic ways of doing everything with which he is connected, and 

 he is invariably a successful business man in whatever industry he 

 may be engaged. 



EETROSPECTIVE. 



Twenty-one years ago the thirtieth of the present month this Society 

 held its first annual winter meeting at Faribault; a little band in 

 numbers, but devoted in purpose; and the few remaining that came 

 to the front on that occasion and enlisted for the war, have never 

 since let their interest in the good cause diminish, but have ever been 

 persistent, faithful workers, untiring in their devotion, standing 

 shoulder to shoulder, battling against the elements to make success- 

 ful an industry capable of giving us employment, sustenance and 

 gratification to the better impulses of our minds and added refine- 

 ment to our homes. This band of persistent workers little thought 

 of the reverses they would be called upon to meet or the discourage- 

 ments to endure, and il they have had doubts and fears to overcome 

 they have never showed signs of being disheartened, but have ever 

 kept their faces to the front; if their labors were arduous they re- 

 doubled their efiForts to make a success out of defeat. If their doubts 

 developed into fear they have never murmured. If they have 



