78 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



think of the orchard, the grove, the flowers and the fruit upon the board, 

 how we long to let those memories run on, and how we murmer uncon- 

 sciously, "There is no place like home." It is a society like this that 

 makes that home possible by its unwavering earnestness, fighting some- 

 times against nature itself and a new soil; meeting from year to year, 

 after hard work and expensive toil, very often, to discuss and throw out 

 to the people of the state the best way and the cheapest way that they 

 can raise that without which I believe mankind is not happy. 



As has often been referred to, even Horace Greeley said that no fruit 

 could be raised in Minnesota, and yet we must remember that he always 

 said, "Young man, go west." He should have recognized another thing: 

 that God, when he made a place for man to live in, the first thing he did 

 was to plant a garden and tell man to keep it and to dress it; and we, as 

 horticulturists, both amateur and professional, are learning one from 

 another how to keep it aud to dress it. One reason why we feel so wel- 

 come in Minneapolis, Mr. Mayor, is that you have in this city, what I 

 believe very few cities have, boastful though other cities may be, well as 

 they may have done, you have been fortunate in possessing a citizen who 

 has had the proper estimation of the value of parks; and you have a 

 system of parks which I believe I have never seen beaten in my travels. 

 It may be beaten in size, but not in system. I believe myself that in 

 those parks you have added, "A thing of beauty which is a joy for ever" 

 to the city of Minneapolis and to the people of our state. I would make 

 an assertion here and think I shall not be contradicted, that while we are 

 glad to hear the buzzing of the machinery, while we are glad to see the 

 cars running here without pulling dr pushing, controlled by the electric 

 current, still, at the same time it is a positive fact that you cannot make 

 a man perfectly happy and contented without his grass and his fruit and 

 his flowers. 



I firmly believe that if the endeavors of our society could be carried out 

 to the very utmost limit throughout the United States, so that we would 

 see even the most ignorant farmer persuaded to plant his orchard and his 

 flower bed, and his grove; I believe that as you give him those sources of 

 true happiness, every uncalled-for strike would be done away with and 

 happiness and contentment would take its place. 



If you remember, the mayor alluded to the lily, aud I will 

 refer to the words of the Lord, when he spoke about the lily. 

 He said, speaking of that which the Israelites counted the great- 

 est of all beauty, "Solomon in all his glory was not arra3^ed like 

 one of these." Remember, too, that when God promised the people 

 of Israel the promised land, he coald describe it in no other words 

 that the poor Israelites could understand than to say it was " a land flowing 

 with milk and honey," and the first evidence that he gave them to that 

 his word was true, was a bunch of grapes from the promised land. 



I tell you, you will find all through that Book of Truth that the evidences 

 of true happiness came from the very industry of which we are now treat- 

 ing. We thank you, Mr. Mayor, for the kind hospitality you have tendered 

 us, and in return we hope that in the way you have gone in the past you 

 will so continue in the future, making park after park, that your resi- 

 dences may be surrounded with the orchard and trees and flowers, and at 

 last Minneapolis shall become in fact like the place we have often heard 

 about, the seventh wonder of the world, and you will have' here a regular 



