HORTIOULTUEAL SOCIETY. 307 



make any such acknowledgement. We seldom think, when eat- 

 ing our luscious fruits or admiring our beautiful flowers, of the 

 careful, painstaking labor — the anxious watchfulness — that 

 has brought them to their present degree of perfection. We 

 are indifferent to and thoughtless of the labors of these men, yet 

 the names of Harris, Gideon, Ragan, Budd, Peffer and Loudon, 

 together with a score of others, who have spjent years of their 

 lives in developing, demonstrating and adapting certain princi- 

 ples of nature, will go down to posterity while ours will have 

 been long forgotten. When we look at simple results we are 

 often disappointed with their meagerness compared with the 

 expenditure of time, labor and money they have cost, but it is 

 unfair to measure them in that way. It is not the labor, the 

 time nor the hundreds of dollars an experiment has cost that 

 should be counted if a theory, a fact, has been demonstrated that 

 shall prove a foundation upon which to base further investiga- 

 tions. The need is for more insight as well as for more outlook. 

 There is also a need of an awakening in the interest of horticul- 

 ture — an arrest of thought in the profession. People not directly 

 interested in the cultivation of fruit are slow to perceive that 

 the study of horticulture holds any attractions for them. Edu- 

 cation furnishes a remedy for this indifference. Early impres- 

 sions are lasting and enough of horticulture should be taught in 

 our common schools to familiarize children with the trees and 

 shrubs indigenous to our country, also our fruits and the methods 

 of their cultivation. As horticulturists we have a duty ia this 

 direction that we can not afford to neglect. 



In the course of evoliitiou, new geaeratioas outgrow the con- 

 ditions of preceding ones; new words are coined and the old 

 words receive new definitions. The word horticulture, in the 

 last quarter of a century, has grown to slgaify more than it did 

 formerly and, in its larger signification, covers a wide range. 



It has outgrown its former restricted definition and is now re- 

 garded as a science which includes not only the modern sciences 

 and arts which relate to the orchard, the garden, the vineyard, 

 and the forest, which is essential in our rigorous climate for the 

 protection of them all, but also relates to all that embellishes the 

 home, the park, the public highway and the farm, as well as to 

 other branches of industry that directly affect all of these in- 

 terests. With the broader meaning of the term there is no need 

 for the modern horticulturist to grow narrow. His education 

 must be of the broadest kind; let him leave the narrowness — 



